How North Korea became a mastermind of crypto cybercrime

Created by a Vietnamese gaming studio, Axie Infinity offers players the chance to breed, trade, and fight Pokémon-like cartoon monsters to earn cryptocurrencies including the game’s own “Smooth Love Potion” digital token. At one stage, it had more than a million active players.

But earlier this year, the network of blockchains that underpin the game’s virtual world was raided by a North Korean hacking syndicate, which made off with roughly $620 million in the ether cryptocurrency.

The crypto heist, one of the largest of its kind in history, was confirmed by the FBI, which vowed to “continue to expose and combat [North Korea’s] use of illicit activities—including cybercrime and cryptocurrency theft—to generate revenue for the regime.” The successful crypto heists illustrate North Korea’s growing sophistication as a malign cyber actor. Western security agencies and cyber security companies treat it as one of the world’s four principal nation-state-based cyber threats, alongside China, Russia, and Iran.