Good grief, how are North Korean hackers trained? Someone who escaped has explained the process.
At age 11, promising math students are selected from elementary-school math olympiad competitions. Those chosen leave home and undergo intensive, secluded training at an elite academy in Pyongyang. According to an escapee, they have six classes a day, each 90 minutes long, with no entertainment. Their homework is to hack real systems in the West and South Korea.
After graduating, the best are sent abroad as commercial programmers—to places like Shenyang, Dalian, Russia, Southeast Asia, and Eastern Europe. By day, they build websites and apps for Western companies and take on Web3 projects. At night, they exploit supply-chain vulnerabilities or use a polished, high-paying LinkedIn offer to lure exchange architects.
With SWIFT out of reach and traditional finance locked down by sanctions, assets like $BTC —where no one needs to use their real name and no one can directly order a freeze—have become their only ATM.
At age 11, promising math students are selected from elementary-school math olympiad competitions. Those chosen leave home and undergo intensive, secluded training at an elite academy in Pyongyang. According to an escapee, they have six classes a day, each 90 minutes long, with no entertainment. Their homework is to hack real systems in the West and South Korea.
After graduating, the best are sent abroad as commercial programmers—to places like Shenyang, Dalian, Russia, Southeast Asia, and Eastern Europe. By day, they build websites and apps for Western companies and take on Web3 projects. At night, they exploit supply-chain vulnerabilities or use a polished, high-paying LinkedIn offer to lure exchange architects.
With SWIFT out of reach and traditional finance locked down by sanctions, assets like $BTC —where no one needs to use their real name and no one can directly order a freeze—have become their only ATM.