US offers $10M bounty to disrupt North Korean cyber operations

The U.S. State Department has said that it will be giving a $10 million reward to individuals with any information regarding North Korean state-sponsored threat actors targeting U.S. critical infrastructure including Lazarus Group, Kimsuky, Bluenoroff, Guardians of Peace, and Andariel, according to BleepingComputer. Such a reward is a twofold increase from the department's initial bounty for those who can provide details to help disrupt DPRK-backed cybercriminals attacking financial institutions and cryptocurrency exchanges around the world. "[North Korean-backed hackers] develop and deploy a wide range of malware tools around the world to enable these activities and have grown increasingly sophisticated," said the State Department. U.S. officials previously noted North Korean attackers' use of crypto-jacking campaigns, financial theft, money laundering, and extortion campaigns to facilitate illicit revenue generation, with three Lazarus Group members indicted in February 2021 in connection to the theft of $1.3 billion in intrusions against various organizations around the world.