North Koreans indicted for alleged role in hacking and ransomware attacks SHARE The U.S. Justice Department today indicted three North Korean nationals for their alleged role in the hacking and ransomware attacks that targeted cryptocurrency exchanges, banks and the entertainment industry among others. Jon Chang Hyok, Kim Il and Park Jin Hyok are accused of being members of the Reconnaissance General Bureau, a military intelligence agency of North Korea that engaged in criminal hacking. The North Korean military hackers are also known by several other names, including the Lazarus Group and Advanced Persistent Threat 38. The Justice Department alleges that the three were involved in the hack of Sony Pictures Entertainment in 2014 as well as attempts from 2015 to 2019 to steal more than $1.2 billion from banks through sending fake Society for World Interbank Financial Telecommunications messages. Justice also cited a raft of other hacks: ATM cash-out schemes, the creation and distribution of the WannaCry 2.0 ransomware in 2017 and subsequent extortion of companies through 2020, the deployment of malicious cryptocurrency applications, the targeting and theft of cryptocurrency from a number of exchanges, so-called spear-phishing campaigns that targeted U.S. government employees as well as energy, aerospace and defense companies, and finally the development of Marine Chain Token, a token that went through an initial coin offering in breach of U.S. sanctions.