N.Korea Mining for Cryptocurrency

A U.S. cybersecurity firm has discovered software that installs code for mining cryptocurrency and sends mined coins to a North Korean university.

AlienVault said the software, created late last month, uses host computers to mine a cryptocurrency called Monero and sends it to Kim Il-sung University in Pyongyang.

The North Korean server, however, is not connected to the wider internet, raising the possibility that it was included to trick observers into connecting the software to North Korea.

This appears to be the latest effort by North Korea to find an alternative stream of revenue amid intensified UN sanctions aimed at strangling its cash flow.