A criminal complaint was unsealed today charging Park Jin Hyok (박진혁; a/k/a Jin Hyok Park and Pak Jin Hek), a North Korean citizen, for his involvement in a conspiracy to conduct multiple destructive cyberattacks around the world resulting in damage to massive amounts of computer hardware, and the extensive loss of data, money and other resources (the “Conspiracy”).
The complaint alleges that Park was a member of a government-sponsored hacking team known to the private sector as the “Lazarus Group,” and worked for a North Korean government front company, Chosun Expo Joint Venture (a/k/a Korea Expo Joint Venture or “KEJV”), to support the DPRK government’s malicious cyber actions.
The Conspiracy’s malicious activities include the creation of the malware used in the 2017 WannaCry 2.0 global ransomware attack; the 2016 theft of $81 million from Bangladesh Bank; the 2014 attack on Sony Pictures Entertainment (SPE); and numerous other attacks or intrusions on the entertainment, financial services, defense, technology, and virtual currency industries, academia, and electric utilities.
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