North Korea behind NHS and FedEx ransomware cyber attack, defectors say
NORTH Korea is likely behind the crippling ransomware cyber attacks which hit the NHS and spread to more than 100 countries around the world, defectors have claimed.
By REBECCA FLOOD
Express.co.uk
May 22, 2017
The WannaCry cyber attack infiltrated the NHS earlier this month, as part of a co-ordinated effort targeting hospitals, governments and businesses.
Renault in France, FedEx in the United States, plus Spain’s telecoms giant Telefonica were also hit in the attack.
So far no organisation or group has claimed responsibility for the hack, although WannaCry ransomware, also known as Wanna Decryptor or WanaCrypt0r 2.0, was used.
Defectors from North Korea’s brutal regime have pointed towards “Unit 180”, a special cell embedded within the country’s spy agency, and claim this faction could be behind the cyber attack.
Pyongyang branded the allegations “ridiculous”.
But evidence revealed links between the communist state and Lazarus Group, the online gang said to be behind a £62million raid on the Bangladeshi Central Bank and the 2014 hack of Sony’s Hollywood studios.
The US government blamed North Korea for the Sony hack at the time.
And one former computer science professor in North Korea, who defected to the South in 2004, claimed his students would have been capable of carrying out the hack.
Kim Heung-kwang claims Unit 180, part of the Reconnaissance General Bureau (RGB) which is the country’s main overseas intelligence agency, is mostly involved in raising funds.
He said: “Unit 180 is engaged in hacking financial institutions (by) breaching and withdrawing money out of bank accounts.
“The hackers go overseas to find somewhere with better internet services than North Korea so as not to leave a trace.”
The Rest…HERE
