Reported by Michelle Nichols

North Korea continued developing nuclear weapons and producing nuclear fissile material in 2023 and evading United Nations sanctions that aim to cut off funding for Pyongyang’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs, according to an unpublished United Nations report seen by Reuters on Thursday.

“After a record-breaking level of cyber thefts in 2022, estimated at $1.7 billion, DPRK (North Korean) hackers reportedly continued to successfully target cyber cryptocurrency and other financial exchanges globally,” independent sanctions monitors wrote in the report to a U.N. Security Council committee.

The U.N. sanctions monitors said hackers working for North Korea’s Reconnaissance General Bureau (RGB), its primary foreign intelligence agency, “continued to use increasingly sophisticated cyber techniques to steal funds and information.”

“Companies in the crypto-currency, defense, energy and health sectors were targeted in particular,” they wrote in the executive summary of the report which is due to be published in coming weeks.

Read full report: https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/north-korea-developing-nuclear-weapons-evading-sanctions-2023-un-report-2023-08-10/