North Korea is ramping up efforts to deploy information technology workers overseas as it increasingly relies on cyberattacks and other online crimes to fund its weapons programs, US and South Korean officials said, anticipating the easing of the isolated country’s strict Covid lockdown.
“This is a growth industry, because as we see the DPRK potentially opening up borders, they could be dispatching additional laborers to all parts of the world to generate revenue,” said Jung Pak, the US deputy special representative for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the country’s formal name. “We think it’s actively getting worse.”
