How North Korea turns child prodigies into crypto thieves
Quick Look
North Korea recruits 200 middle school students annually from age 11 for a decade-old hacker program, rewarding top operatives with Pyongyang apartments, hard currency, and high-status marriages after cyber heists including the $6.3 billion Binance hack.
AI-generated summary
Why It Matters
North Korea has operated a hacker recruitment program for more than a decade, selecting 200 of the smartest middle school students each year to study computer engineering. The group evolved from running illegal gambling websites to conducting major cyber heists.
North Korea rewards its top hackers, tasked with heists like the Binance crypto hack that netted a cool US$6.3 billion, with perks such as spacious apartments in the capital and huge hard currency awards in return for gruelling hours of work.
Leader Kim Jong-un has assembled an army of world-class hackers using such incentives in a programme more than a decade old that picks 200 of the smartest middle school students each year to study computer engineering, defectors and analysts say.
A fraction eventually become hackers in an investment that has paid off dramatically, as the group has evolved from the early days when it ran illegal gambling websites to pulling off the world's biggest cyber heist last month.
Open Questions
- Which specific defectors and analysts provided the information?
- What is the exact timeline of the Binance hack?
- How many students successfully become hackers each year?
- What specific hard currency awards are given to top hackers?
