Binance freezes assets of North Korean companies at the request of the United States

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Cryptocurrency exchange Binance has announced that it has frozen $4.4 million worth of crypto assets associated with organizations from North Korea at the request of the US authorities.

The Binance Investigations team has worked withby US law enforcement to stop the "illegal revenue-generating activities" of four organizations from the DPRK that are currently under sanctions, the crypto exchange explained on Twitter.

“More than a year ago, we began to take active action against these accounts,” the company said in a statement.

Office of Foreign Assets ControlThe US Treasury Department on May 23 announced sanctions against four organizations and one individual that were engaged in "cyber activities in support of the government of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea."

These organizations were the Pyongyang University of Automation, the information technology operator Chinyong, the Bureau of Technical Intelligence and the 110th Research Center subordinate to it.

According to the Ministry of Finance, Chinyongsupports "thousands of highly skilled IT professionals around the world" who launder funds used to create weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles.

The sanctions list includes one Kim Sang Man who received $2 million in crypto for selling IT equipment to groups in China and Russia linked to North Korea.

Earlier, Sekoia analysts released a report where they reported that the North Korean hacker group BlueNoroff is attacking macOS users with malware called RustBucket.

North Korea-linked hacker groups stole $721 million in cryptocurrencies from Japanese entrepreneurs between 2017 and 2022. In the US government
believe that cyber attacks and theft of cryptocurrenciesbecame the main source of income for the North Korean authorities. At least half of North Korea's missile program is funded by cybercrime, Washington says.

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