From: Virus Guy 

Meet The North Korean Evil Genius Who Hacked Sony, The Bangladesh 
Central Bank, And Launched WannaCry

09/06/2018

In the latest crackdown on foreign hackers, on Thursday the DOJ accused 
a North Korean programmer of hacking a series of financial institutions 
and entertainment companies as part of a wave of cyber attacks ordered 
by the Kim Jong Un's regime. The criminal complaint unsealed on Thursday 
alleged that Park Jin Hyok was responsible for the hack of Sony Pictures 
in 2014, the theft of $80m from the Bangladesh Central Bank in 2016, and 
the WannaCry malware attack in 2017.

The US government also alleged that Hyok targeted Lockheed Martin, which 
built an anti-missile defence system deployed in South Korea.

Meet... North Korea's notorious cyber villain, hacking wizard and 
undisputed evil genius.

https://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/inline-images/north%20korean%20hacker.jpg

Hyok was charged in a 179-page criminal complaint that detailed his 
alleged hacks on behalf of the North Korean government from 2014 through 
to 2018. The filing does not name any other individuals but a DoJ 
official said its investigation was ongoing. At the same time, the US 
Treasury announced sanctions against Hyok and Chosun Expo Joint Venture, 
the company he worked for. The DOJ claimed the company was a front 
designed to generate currency for North Korean intelligence.

“Working for a foreign government does not immunise criminal conduct,” 
said John Demers, assistant attorney-general for the DoJ's national 
security division. In noting previous cyberhacking charges against 
Chinese, Russian and Iranian nationals going back to 2014, Demers said 
that  "today we add the North Korean regime to our list,” he said, which 
made “four out of four of our principal adversaries in cyber space."

"These activities run afoul of acceptable norms of behaviour in cyber 
space and the international community must address them," he added.

Ironically - or perhaps intentionally - the DOJ announcement of the 
charges came just hours after Donald Trump tweeted praise from the North 
Korean leader.

“Kim Jong Un of North Korea proclaims ‘unwavering faith in President 
Trump'. Thank you to Chairman Kim. We will get it done together!” Mr 
Trump tweeted on Thursday morning.

A senior DoJ official said the department had given “our partners in the 
US government a heads-up” regarding the action, as normal. The official 
declined to provide detail on why the justice department chose to unseal 
the complaint at this time, according to the FT. It was filed in the 
central district of California in June.

The FBI has previously identified North Korea as responsible for the 
hack of Sony 2014, which the US said was in retaliation for The 
Interview, a movie that mocked the North Korean leader. Last year, the 
Trump administration also attributed the WannaCry ransomware attack to 
North Korea.

The charges against Hyok come as US officials grow increasingly 
frustrated that North Korea has not made any moves towards 
denuclearisation following the historic summit between Mr Trump and Mr 
Kim in June. After the summit, Mr Trump and Mike Pompeo, the secretary 
of state leading the North Korea talks, defended the agreement reached 
in Singapore against accusations that it was too vague.

Today's release may therefore be a nudge to Trump to push forward with 
escalating the peace process, or else engage in further sanctions.

In recent weeks Trump himself has conceded that negotiations are not 
progressing well — to the point that he told Mr Pompeo to cancel a visit 
to Pyongyang where the secretary of state had been expected to meet Kim. 
  After a gap of six months, the US in August started imposing more 
North Korea-related sanctions, as it attempted to step up economic 
pressure on Pyongyang. China has reportedly been easing some of the 
measures that it had imposed in accordance with UN sanctions on the 
North Korean regime.

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-09-06/us-charges-north-korean-programmer-over-sony-hacking-wannacry-malware-attack
--- NewsGate v1.0 gamma 2