UN Body Coordinator Calls For Greater Focus On North Korea's Cyber Crimes

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A UN body coordinator has sought greater focus on cyber crimes in North Korea

The coordinator for the UN body monitoring enforcement of sanctions on North Korea said on Wednesday a stepped up focus was needed on cybercrime, which had become fundamental to Pyongyang's ability to finance its banned weapons programs.

Eric Penton-Voak, of the UN Security Council's Panel of Experts on North Korea, noted that despite the widest sanctions regime ever imposed by the United Nations on a nation state, North Korea had markedly accelerated its missile testing, particularly over the past six months.

"It may be no coincidence that the words cyber and crypto-currency do not actually appear in the UN sanctions resolutions," he told a discussion hosted by Washington's Center for a New American Security think tank.

Mr Penton-Voak said he believed cyber activity had become "absolutely fundamental" to North Korea's ability to evade UN sanctions to raise money for its nuclear and missile programs, but biannual reports of the experts' panel had not reflected this as member states had been reluctant to report breaches.

"We rely on UN member states to inform us about breaches in order to investigate. But many, many member states are quite cautious about their own cyber capabilities," he said.

"Victims for their part are often very reluctant to discuss how hacks happened and how extensive they were ... I do hope and expect that our reports in the future will rather better reflect the central importance of cyber-enabled financial crime to (North Korea)."

Mr Penton-Voak said North Korean hackers were at the cutting edge of cyber technology, as shown by the recent hack of the Axie Infinity video game.

The United States last week linked North Korean hackers