{"id":16946,"date":"2025-11-30T23:45:15","date_gmt":"2025-11-30T23:45:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/north-korea-weaponizes-banned-nvidia-gpus-in-push-to-steal-more-crypto\/"},"modified":"2025-11-30T23:45:22","modified_gmt":"2025-11-30T23:45:22","slug":"north-korea-weaponizes-banned-nvidia-gpus-in-push-to-steal-more-crypto","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/north-korea-weaponizes-banned-nvidia-gpus-in-push-to-steal-more-crypto\/","title":{"rendered":"North Korea weaponizes banned Nvidia GPUs in push to steal more crypto"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div class=\"post-detail__content blocks\">\n<p class=\"is-style-lead\">North Korea has spent nearly 30 years developing artificial intelligence capabilities that could accelerate crypto theft operations, according to a report from South Korea\u2019s Institute for National Security Strategy.<\/p>\n<div id=\"cn-block-summary-block_6f9f19f4627fd76ee18abece15504f4e\" class=\"cn-block-summary\">\n<div class=\"cn-block-summary__nav tabs\">\n        <span class=\"tabs__item is-selected\">Summary<\/span>\n    <\/div>\n<div class=\"cn-block-summary__content\">\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>INSS says North Korea is using banned NVIDIA GPUs to accelerate AI-driven cybercrime.<\/li>\n<li>AI tools in facial recognition and voice synthesis may boost industrial-scale crypto theft.<\/li>\n<li>Crypto hacks hit $172.5M in November, with code flaws causing most of the losses.<\/li>\n<\/ul><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><!-- .cn-block-summary --><\/p>\n<p>Researchers <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.chosun.com\/english\/world-en\/2025\/11\/30\/WKGR6RH3NJGX5PWIGTOO5B55R4\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">discovered<\/a> Pyongyang is using banned NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2700 graphics cards to power AI research focused on pattern recognition, speech processing, and data optimization.<\/p>\n<p>The findings come as crypto hacks totaled $172.5 million in November 2025, with code vulnerabilities accounting for $130.2 million in losses.<\/p>\n<p>Kim Min Jung, who heads the Advanced Technology Strategy Center at INSS, warned that \u201cprecise monitoring of North Korea\u2019s AI research trends and policy responses to suppress the military and cyber diversion of related technologies are urgently needed.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>    <!-- .cn-block-related-link --><\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">AI research targets facial recognition and voice synthesis<\/h2>\n<p>North Korea has strengthened AI capabilities through expanded research institutions and self-developed algorithms since the 2010s.<\/p>\n<p>This year\u2019s studies by the National Academy of Sciences\u2019 Mathematical Research Institute and Pyongyang Lee University covered facial recognition, multi-object tracking, lightweight voice synthesis, and accent identification.<\/p>\n<p>The research shows efforts to improve both accuracy and processing speed within limited computational environments.<\/p>\n<p>These technologies allow target identification, movement path prediction, and better efficiency in disrupting command communications or executing social engineering attacks.<\/p>\n<p>Some studies used NVIDIA\u2019s GeForce RTX 2700, which the U.S. Department of the Treasury\u2019s Office of Foreign Assets Control designated as prohibited for export or re-export to North Korea.<\/p>\n<p>    <!-- .cn-block-related-link --><\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Crypto theft could reach industrial scale with AI automation<\/h2>\n<p>The INSS report warned that AI capabilities could be applied to deepfake production, detection evasion, and optimized crypto asset theft.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cUtilizing high-performance AI computational resources could exponentially increase attack and theft attempts per unit time, enabling a small number of personnel to conduct operations with efficiency and precision comparable to industrial-scale efforts,\u201d the report stated.<\/p>\n<p>Multi-person tracking research could expand into real-time surveillance systems when combined with CCTV or drone reconnaissance.<\/p>\n<p>North Korea-China-Russia cooperation since the Ukraine war is a variable that could accelerate practical AI deployment. The report emphasized continuous monitoring of North Korea\u2019s AI applications in military, surveillance, and cyber domains.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\"><a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/CertiKStatsAlert?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">#CertiKStatsAlert<\/a> \ud83d\udea8<\/p>\n<p>Combining all the incidents in November we\u2019ve confirmed ~$127M lost to exploits, hacks and scams after ~$45M was frozen or returned.<\/p>\n<p>More details below \ud83d\udc47 <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/sOunnk1pEK\">pic.twitter.com\/sOunnk1pEK<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 CertiK Alert (@CertiKAlert) <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/CertiKAlert\/status\/1995100497049444447?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">November 30, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<p>CertiK Alert data shows November 2025 crypto losses reached $172.5 million, with approximately $45.5 million frozen or returned. Code vulnerabilities and wallet compromises accounted for the majority of incidents.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>North Korea has spent nearly 30 years developing artificial intelligence capabilities that could accelerate crypto theft operations, according to a report from South Korea\u2019s Institute for National Security Strategy. Summary&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1037,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16946","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cryptocurrency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16946","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16946"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16946\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16947,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16946\/revisions\/16947"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1037"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16946"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16946"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16946"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}