Facing sanctions from much of the rest of the world, North Korea has turned to cybercrime to help finance their operations. The Lazarus Group is well known as a state-sponsored team of criminal hackers serving North Korean interests, and in 2017 they set their sights on cryptocurrency users and exchanges in South Korea with a spear phishing campaign. Additionally, they’ve targeted South Korean college students interested in foreign affairs, part of a group called “Friends of MOFA” (Ministry of Foreign Affairs).

Juan Andres Guerrero-Saade is a principal security researcher for Recorded Future’s Insikt Group, and he joins us to help explain what the North Koreans are up to, the methods and tools they are using, just how sophisticated they may or may not be, and why, in the end, sophistication might not really matter much.