The UK government will support Jaguar Land Rover with a £1.5 billion ($2 billion) loan to alleviate the burden on suppliers caused by the automaker’s production stop, which was brought on by a cyberattack.
The government announced on 27 September that the loan, which will be given by a commercial bank and insured by UK Export Finance, will be paid back over a period of five years. It comes after the attack earlier this month caused the Range Rover manufacturer to shut down operations in Slovakia, Brazil, India, and the UK, disrupting the larger supply chain.
The Labour government was in negotiations to provide assistance to vendors affected by the hack, which compelled some to send employees home while others awaited JLR’s payments. The biggest automaker in the UK has 34,000 employees, and its supply chain supports an additional 120,000 jobs in the nation.
Providing a Side of Relief to Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Government
In addition to helping the car industry, this move will also assist in relieving some of the strain on Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s administration before his ruling Labour Party begins its annual conference in Liverpool on September 28.
This loan guarantee would assist in strengthening the supply chain and protecting skilled jobs in the West Midlands, Merseyside, and throughout the United Kingdom, according to Business Secretary Peter Kyle, who visited the automaker’s headquarters and supplier Webasto this week.
In order to clear a backlog of supplier invoices, expedite the delivery of parts to dealers, and expedite vehicle sales and registrations, JLR announced on 25 September that some of its systems were back online. Although it has warned that it may take some time to get back to full speed, the company plans to resume certain manufacturing operations on October 1.
JLR Already Started the Recovery System
Restarting a small number of its computer systems is the first step in Jaguar Land Rover’s recovery process following a hack. A gradual recovery procedure is also in progress, according to the manufacturer, weeks after the cyberattack compelled the automaker to halt production at all of its UK operations.
After media reports indicated that JLR would have to pay up to 2 billion pounds since it was not insured against the catastrophe, which has already caused significant financial losses and delayed operations, the company released a statement in response to a request for clarification from BSE.
According to the announcement, JLR has notified its suppliers, retail partners, and coworkers that certain areas of its digital estate are now operational as part of the controlled, phased relaunch of its business. Its recovery programme’s foundational work is already under way.
Quick
Shots
•Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) secures a
£1.5 billion ($2 billion) government-backed loan to stabilise operations
after a major cyberattack.
•The loan, provided by a commercial
bank and insured by UK Export Finance, will be repaid over five years.
•Cyberattack incident forced
production shutdowns in the UK, Slovakia, Brazil, and India, severely
disrupting the supply chain.
•Funding aims to clear invoice
backlogs, support vendors, and accelerate parts deliveries to dealerships.
The RBI has instructed banks and payment institutions to incorporate the telecom department’s (DoT) financial fraud risk indicator (FRI) into their systems in light of the increasing number of cybercrimes.
The RBI guideline, released on June 30, seeks to use cutting-edge technologies to combat cybercrime. The DoT hailed the action as a turning point. In a statement, the DoT claimed that the RBI’s directives mark a turning point in the battle against financial crimes made possible by cyberspace and demonstrate the effectiveness of interagency cooperation in protecting individuals in India’s expanding digital economy.
FRI is a risk-based statistic that was introduced in May and links a cellphone number to the level of financial fraud. Data from DoT’s Chakshu platform, the government’s cybercrime reporting portal, and information provided by banks and financial organisations are used to highlight the numbers.
This makes it possible for the appropriate parties to take further consumer protection steps to stop financial frauds committed using high-risk mobile numbers.
Real-time FRI allows banks and other financial institutions to take preventative steps like rejecting suspicious transactions, warning or alerting clients, and postponing high-risk transactions.
FRI Already Deployed on Fintech Platforms
Real-time response and ongoing feedback to improve the fraud risk models are made possible by an API-based platform that automates data interchange between banks and DoT’s digital intelligence platform, which has created FRI.
According to the DoT, the platform has already been implemented in banks like HDFC Bank and ICICI Bank as well as fintech companies like PhonePe and Paytm.
The DoT went on to say that as UPI is the most widely used payment mechanism in India, this action may prevent millions of people from being victims of cybercrime. The FRI makes it possible to take prompt, focused, and cooperative action against suspected frauds in the banking and telecommunications meantime, it has sectors.
In the been claimed that the National Quantum Mission (NQM) is creating a task force to help banks implement the new technology for data analysis, financial modelling, and cybersecurity. The task force will assist banks in creating rules for the shift to quantum technologies, according to a media source.
A draft of these standards is expected to be made public in the coming months following government approval. One of NQM’s initial milestones, a long-distance quantum key distribution (QKD) network, is anticipated to be completed by the end of July or the beginning of August, the article also stated.
Cybercrime on the Rise in India
Indians lost INR 1,935.51 Cr to digital arrest frauds in 2024, Bandi Sanjay Kumar, the minister of state (MoS) for home affairs, said in the Parliament earlier this year. He added that in the first nine months of FY25, cyber frauds cost INR 107.21 Cr.
According to reports, the Centre has shut thousands of WhatsApp accounts used to spread online fraud, along with lakhs of SIM cards and IMEIs (International Mobile Equipment Identity).
According to cybersecurity researchers, they have recently discovered a vast database that contains over 16 billion usernames and passwords, rendering it the most significant data exposure in history.
As per recent reports, the passwords that were revealed were probably created by several thieves who stole usernames and passwords using different types of infostealing software.
It turns out that these login credentials were collected from a variety of sources, including developer portals, business platforms, social media, and VPNs. Between tens of millions to over 3.5 billion records with accounts from Google, Apple, Facebook, GitHub, Telegram, and other platforms were found in 30 publicly available datasets of varying sizes, according to the researchers.
According to the study, “none of the exposed datasets were reported previously,” with the exception of the Jeremiah Fowler-reported collection that included over 184 million passwords.
Blueprint of Mass Exploitation
Researchers go on to say that this is a roadmap for broad exploitation rather than merely a leak. Cybercriminals now have unparalleled access to personal credentials that may be exploited for identity theft, account takeover, and highly targeted phishing, since more than 16 billion login records have been made public.
The structure and recentness of these databases are particularly worrisome; they are not merely repeated breaches from the past. This is large-scale, new intelligence that can be used as a weapon. Additionally, these recently found datasets were only made available online for a short time utilising unprotected Elasticsearch and object storage instances.
This was sufficient for security researchers to find the dataset without discovering who was in possession of it. According to the research, most of the data that was exposed comes from “a mix of details from stealer malware, credential stuffing sets, and repackaged leaks.”
Furthermore, these databases probably contain some duplicate information, even though there is no way to compare them. Because of this, it is challenging to estimate the number of individuals impacted by the data breach.
Datasets Recovered Followed a Set Pattern
The majority of the information in these datasets had a specific format, consisting of a URL followed by a username and password. For those who don’t know, this is precisely how malware that steals information gathers and transmits it to threat actors.
The researchers also discovered that phishing efforts, ransomware attacks, business email compromises, and account takeovers frequently employ these massive datasets of usernames and passwords.
Tokens, cookies, and metadata were also included in these accessible datasets, making them risky for businesses and services without multi-factor authentication. Additionally, some of these were only referred to as “credentials” and “logins”.
A memorandum of understanding (MoU) has been struck by the US and India to strengthen collaboration in cybercrime investigations. The MoU would enable the two nations to “step up” collaboration and training with relation to employing digital forensics and cyber threat intelligence for criminal investigations, according to a statement from the external affairs ministry (MEA). The home ministry and the Indian Cybercrime Coordination Centre (I4C) would be in charge of carrying out the Memorandum of Understanding on the Indian side. Conversely, the US side’s nodal agency will be the Homeland Security Investigations Cyber Crimes Centre, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and the Department of Homeland Security.
Further Strengthening India-US Ties
The security issues that India and the US share, including terrorism and violent extremism, financing of terrorism, drug trafficking, organised crime, human trafficking, illegal migration, money laundering, and transportation security, are intricately linked to cybercrime. “As part of our comprehensive and global strategic partnership, the MoU on cybercrime investigations will enable further strengthening of India-US security cooperation,” the MEA’s official statement stated. On January 17, Indian Ambassador to the United States Vinay Kwatra and Acting U.S. Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security Kristie Canegallo signed the agreement in Washington, DC.
The action is anticipated to promote cybersecurity cooperation between the two countries, facilitate information exchange, and open the door for prompt inquiry in such situations. This comes days after the US, Japan, and South Korean governments jointly said that state-backed North Korean hackers were responsible for the $235 million hack at the Indian cryptocurrency exchange WazirX last year. Additionally, the development coincides with an increasing number of cyberattacks targeting Indian organisations and entities. In 2024, India became the second most targeted country in the world for cyberattacks, after the United States.
Great Surge in Cyber Attacks in 2024: Prahar’s Report
Across the first quarter of 2024, there were 500 million cyberattacks across the nation, according to a report by the nonprofit Prahar. In the second quarter of last year, there were about 750 million more attacks. AI and ML techniques have made cyber dangers worse by teaching machines to automate and improve hacks, making them more difficult to detect. Last year, there were several significant cyberattacks in India, including those at the state-run telecom company BSNL (278 GB of private user data was exposed), the broking platform Angel One (personal data of 7.9 million consumers was exposed), and WazirX (which affected 15 million users).
The signing coincides with a change in leadership in the United States, making it a pivotal time. The signing of this agreement by the Biden administration demonstrates the growing significance of international cooperation in cybercrime investigations.
As per the recent media reports, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is developing an AI-enabled system that will alert people in real time about financial scams.
An AI-based warning system would identify suspicious transactions as they are going to be made, and individual banks will access a central bank data repository that has information on different kinds of frauds and their offenders. In order to lower the danger of cyber fraud, the system will employ AI to gather and evaluate data on possible frauds, identify high-risk platforms, and alert users during transactions.
Even while cybercrime is still under control, the RBI believes that taking a proactive stance is essential to tackling new issues in the online financial sector. Indeed, MuleHunter AI, an artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) model, has already been created by the Reserve Bank of India Innovation Hub (RBIH), a division of the RBI, to assist banks and other financial institutions in identifying so-called mule accounts that fraudsters utilise. In contrast, the new system will protect digital transactions and notify users.
RBI Shaping the Cybercrime Fee Banking Services
To identify and stop cyber fraud, the RBI has been developing an AI-enabled fraud information system for some time. Implementing AI that can learn from previous frauds to flag high-risk transactions is one of the proposals made by an expert panel on cyber frauds that the RBI established.
The method seeks to increase banks’ and payment gateways’ readiness to identify possible fraud while making it more difficult to cash out illicit funds. The frequency and average magnitude of cyber frauds are increasing, despite the fact that current fraud rates are still modest at about one every 114,000 transactions. All of them, then, are a component of the strategies to raise public awareness in order to help stop victimisation.
In 2015, the central bank formed the Cyber Security and IT Examination (CSITE) cell under its Department of Banking Supervision, in addition to establishing several groups to combat cyber fraud. Additionally, it established a Fraud Monitoring Cell that publishes a list of bank and financial institution officials who are in charge of reporting fraud.
Making Guidelines More Stringent
Using information from the Indian Cybercrime Coordination Centre, a government agency tasked with combating cyber fraud, the central bank has also revised instructions for banks. The 2024 Deloitte-NASCIO Cybersecurity Study states that as the digital landscape grows and more personal, health, and financial data is available online, along with critical infrastructure like power, water, and transportation systems integrated with online components, cybersecurity is becoming a top priority for governments, regulators, and corporations. This increases vulnerabilities.
According to the research, which was published on September 30, governments and regulators are realising more and more how important strong information security is to the dependable running of important government services.The area of attack is expanding. Both the Internet of Things and the Internet itself are generating more information. The public’s financial, health, and other personal information is stored on more servers in more locations than ever before. According to the report, online operational components are connected with more important infrastructure.
It further stated that state officials are realising that information security is fundamental to the effective operation of vital government services and that all of this leads to an increase in the number of sites of risk.
Online Fraud Cases are Growing
The number of banking frauds rose by almost 300% in FY24 compared to the previous two years, according to the RBI’s May annual report. According to the data, public sector banks reported 75% of the total fraud amount in FY24, while private sector banks recorded 67% of the fraud incidents. According to the RBI statistics, the total number of online fraud cases rose by 708% to 29,082 in FY 23 and FY 24.
The digital world has made our life easier and faster. Nowadays, anything is possible with just a click or a touch. It wouldn’t be wrong to say, that our life revolves around the internet. Every business, organisations, and companies are on the internet. However, with the increase in the use of the internet in the world, we have seen a drastic increase in cybercrime as well. Many organisations and faced cyber-attacks on them.
Firstly we need to understand what a cyber-attack is. A cyber-attack can be defined as a malicious activity or planned attempt by any organization or an individual to steal or corrupt the information of the system of another organization or individual. Cybercriminals or hackers generally use various methods to attack the system; some of them are malware, ransomware, phishing, denial of service, and other methods. In this article, we will talk everything about India being the third most cyber-attacked nation and what steps the Government has taken. So, let’s take a look at them.
Cyber attacks are done in many forms by criminals and hackers and some of them are defined below:
Malware
Malware can be known as malicious software, which includes spyware, viruses, worms, and ransomware. Malware violates laws and launches a network through a vulnerability, generally happens when a person clicks on a minacious link or email attachment that then installs the risky software into your system without your permission. Once this software attacks your system, the malicious software can manage to do things such as install some more malicious and additional harmful software, can obtain and spy on all the information present on the hard disk, can disrupt some components of the system, and can block your access to manage some important components of a computer network.
Phishing
It is a cyber-crime in which a target receives an Email, telephonic call, or a text SMS by someone who pretends to be a lawful organization or institute to lure the targets into providing essential data and sensitive information such as banking details, credit cards, and debit card details, personal information, and various account passwords. Then these details are used by the attacker to access the information-which can further result in financial loss, cyberbullying, cyber blackmailing, and identity theft.
Man-In-The-Middle Attack
This cyber-attack is also known as eavesdropping, takes place when attackers insert themselves in between transactions of two-party. Once the attacker interrupts the traffic, they can rectify and steal information. On less secure public Wi-Fi, attackers can indulge themselves between a visitor device and the network through the same Wi-Fi connection. Without having an idea, the user passes all information through the attacker- after the malware reaches inside the device, the attacker can install malicious software to steal all of the victim’s data.
Denial-Of-Service Attack
DoS is a cyber-attack that is meant to shut down a server, network, and machine by making them inaccessible to the right users. DoS floods the target with traffic, or it just sends irrelevant information that triggers a crash of the server or network. Sometimes attackers can also use multiple compromised devices to attack. This is known as Denial-of-service (DoS).
SQL Injection
Structured Query Language Injection is a cyber-attack that takes place when the attackers insert the malicious coding inside the server that takes over the SQL and forces the system server to disclose the crucial information and data. SQL Injection destroys the database, and the attacker can modify or delete the data stored in the database, causing persistent changes to the application behavior or content.
DNS Tunneling
It is the most damaging DNS attack. Domain Name Systems turns into a hacking weapon. DNS tunneling is a cyber-attack where the hacker or attacker encodes the information of other protocols or programs in DNS queries and responses. DNS tunnelling generally holds data payloads-which can be added to an attacked DNS server and is used to control applications and remote servers.
Reasons Behind Cyber Attacks
There are several reasons why these cyber attacks take place and they are:
To gain business financial details.
To gain customer financial information (for example- Bank details).
To gain product design or trade secrets.
To gain login credentials and email addresses of various customers or staff.
Cyber-warfare: It is a war caused by the Internet to leak information.
Biggest Cyber Attacks in India
SIM Swap Scam
In Mumbai, two hackers were arrested for transferring almost 4 crore rupees from various bank accounts in August 2018. They illegally transferred money from the bank accounts of numerous individuals just by gaining SIM card information. Both the hackers blocked individual SIM cards, and with the support of fake documentation, they pulled out transactions with the help of online banking. Various company accounts were also on the target.
Hacking of Indian Healthcare Websites
In 2019, Health Care websites became the target of cyber-attack. As confirmed by US-based cybersecurity firms, hackers broke in and invaded a leading India-based healthcare website. The hackers were able to steal the information of about 68 lakh patients as well as doctors.
Hacking of UIDAI Aadhaar Software
In 2018, around 1.1 billion Aadhaar cardholders’ personal information was breached. According to data by UIDAI, more than 210 websites leaked the essential Aadhar details online. Data leaked included Aadhaar, mobile numbers, PAN, bank account numbers, IFSC codes, and mostly all the personal data of all individual Aadhaar cardholders. If it was not quite shocking, some anonymous hacker was selling the Aadhaar information of individuals for 500 rupees through WhatsApp.
ATM System Hacked
In 2018, cyber attackers targeted the ATM servers of Canara Bank. Almost around 20 lakh rupees were stolen from various accounts of Canara Bank account holders. There were around 50 targets estimated according to information provided by the source. The cyber attackers were able to steal the ATM details of around more than 300 account holders. Hackers were using skimmed devices to wipe out the information from debit cardholders. The transactions made by hackers from various accounts amounted from 10,000 rupees to a maximum amount of 40,000 rupees.
Cosmos Bank Cyber Attack in Pune
Attacked by hackers in the year 2018. The cyber-attackers pulled off almost 94.42 crore rupees from Cosmos Cooperative Bank, which shook the entire banking sector of India. Hackers were able to steal huge amounts by hacking the ATM server of the Bank and gathering the information of debit cardholders and visa details. Hackers from around 28 countries immediately withdrew all the money as soon as they were informed.
Global Weekly Cyber Attacks per Organisation
Steps Taken by Indian Government
To counter these attacks, the Government of India has taken a few steps to secure companies and organisation from being victim.
Personal Data Protection Bill
The bill implies the processing and storage of any critical data related to individuals living only in India. It majorly states that the sensitive and essential personal information of the individual should be stored locally; however, it can only be processed abroad under some terms and conditions. The bill also focuses on making social media companies more accountable and urging them to solve issues related to the spread of irrelevant and offensive content on the internet.
Website Audit
Surrounded by the rising number of government website hacking, data theft, email phishing, and privacy breach cases in India, the Indian government has taken initiatives to conduct an audit on all of the websites and applications of the government. Under this initiative by the Indian government, around 90 security auditing organizations have been enlisted by the government for auditing the best practices of information security of the Indian government data.
CERT-In
The advancing Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In), which is responsible for operating the national agency for handling cybersecurity, has helped in decreasing the rate of cyber-attacks on government networks and servers in India. The implementation of cybersecurity awareness and anti-phishing training across Indian government organizations and agencies has assisted employees working in technological department of government sectors in fighting cybercrimes. Apart from spreading awareness of the hazard caused by phishing attacks to the public, CERT-In has issued advisories and alerts regarding the latest cyber countermeasures and vulnerabilities to counter and tackle them.
Cyber Surakshit Bharat
India aims to strengthen the cybersecurity ecosystem in coordination with the government’s vision for making Digital India. The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology has come up with the Cyber Surakshit Bharat movement. This program is in association with the National e-Governance Division of India. Indian governance system has transformed digitalization rapidly; therefore, the requirement of good governance is important. With such an initiative by the government, there would be an increase in awareness against cybercrime and building the capacity for securing the CISOs and the frontline IT staff across all government organizations in India. Apart from just awareness, the first public-private partnership also includes a series of some workshops to make government employees fight against cybercrimes and help professionals with cyber security health tool kits to take down cyber threats.
Conclusion
Cyber-attacks have now become a weapon to launch attacks on different organisations. Mainly they are done to attain secrets of organisations or Governments. Unfortunately, because of this India has become prone to cyber-attack and in 2020, it recorded 1.16 million breaches alone. Some steps have been taken to counter these attacks, however more and more strong cyber security is needed.
FAQs
Which countries get cyber attacked the most?
Top 3 countries that cyber attacked the most are:
Japan
Australia
India
What do you mean by Cyber Attacks?
A cyber-attack can be defined as a malicious activity or planned attempt by any organization or an individual to steal or corrupt the information of the system of another organization or individual.
Which country is the best for cybersecurity?
Sweden has suffered the lowest rate of malware infection. It is considered as one of the best country with cybersecurity.
One of the major reasons for the growth of the world economy as a whole throughout this 21st century is the East Asian countries. Comprising mainly of countries like China, Taiwan, and South Korea, these countries have revolutionized the world through their innovative processes in the world of manufacturing and supply chain for a wide range of products, be it semiconductor chips to automobiles to any product you can think of. This is one of the major reasons that we as consumers can enjoy the luxury of products that we would have not otherwise. Even the Prime Minister of India, Shree Narendra Modi, launched an “Act Far East Policy” in 2019, with the perspective of making our relations between Japan and South Korea even better.
While other countries of East Asia are interlinked successfully to the global economy, this has not been true for North Korea, which rather follows an isolationist path and is not connected at all to the global economy. This is mainly due to the policies of the Kim dynasty, which has ruled North Korea since Kim Il-sung took the reins of the country in 1948 and has been continued for generations with his grandson Kim-Jong Un currently ruling North Korea since 2012.
Isolationist North Korea
This map demonstrates to us how isolationist North Korea is. In the map, which is taken from a 2014 Business Insider report, we can observe how there are various routes of maritime transportation of cargo ships between China and South Korea and then how completely there are negligible cargo ship routes that involve North Korea even though they are sandwiched between China and South Korea here. No wonder, the exports of North Korea, a measly 2.2 billion dollars, is underwhelming in comparison to the two behemoths in China (which exports goods worth 2.6 TRILLION dollars and South Korea (which exports goods worth 531 billion dollars) they are sandwiched in-between.
North Korea has also faced a lot of economic sanctions due to its nuclear weapons program. The United Nations have passed several resolutions ever since North Korea had its first nuclear test in 2006, which effectively makes exporting goods to Pyongyang (the North Korean capital) futile unless it is basic amenities like nutrition, sanitation, and water. The European Union has also announced an embargo on virtually on all products to be exported from North Korea.
So this surely makes us wonder if North Korea is so isolationist, how can they earn revenue which helps them run their economy despite all these sanctions? In this article, we would discuss how various North Korean governments have earned the revenue they have accumulated in the first place despite their isolationist policies.
It can be seen China and North Korea have strong trade relations. This is mainly due to geopolitical reasons, as China sees North Korea as a perfect counter to the strong American relations with Japan and South Korea.
Import market in North Korea
As per a 2017 Statista report, a whopping 75% of its overall trade is with China. This can be seen by this pictorial representation, where China accounts for 94% of North Korea’s imports and 91% of North Korea’s exports.
Export market in North Korea
So what does North Korea mainly export? One of its main exports is COAL. North Korea has 661 Million tons of proven coal reserves, which makes it the 35th largest in the world. And out of these reserves, it is widely reported in a 2017 Observatory of Economic Complexity (also known as OEC) report that North Korea exports around 368 million dollars worth of coal, with China being one of its biggest beneficiaries.
In 2017, China announced that it would be ending all coal exports from North Korea to comply with the various sanctions North Korea got due to its nuclear program, but as per a confidential United Nations report, coal is still exported to China through illegal shipments. In fact, as per a 2021 Financial Times report, it is widely reported that coal exports have increased, with China battling its energy crisis.
Another crucial product that North Korea exports to China is TEXTILES. As per the same 2017 OEC report, North Korea exports around 584 million dollars worth of textiles, which include non-knit coats, suits, and activewear. This has been a major controversy in North Korea, as a lot of those textiles are re-exported all over the world with a “Made in China” tag. North Korea also gets to export other products such as ferrosilicon, potato flour, and components for electric watches.
Most of the trade between North Korea and China mainly happens through the north-eastern port of Dandong in China. This is separated from the closest North Korean city of Sinuiju by the narrow Yalu river.
If there is one product that North Korea exports on a relatively worldwide level, it is their renowned seafood products such as pine mushrooms, mollusks, and processed fish. The North Korean government has worldwide restaurants dedicated to it in parts of the world, like Vietnam, the Netherlands, etc.
North Korea also trades with India, with the trade deficit being predominantly in India’s favour. India mainly exports its petroleum products and other goods worth 60 million dollars, while it imports automobile parts and silver parts worth 36 million dollars. Even though India has condemned the nuclear weapon program of North Korea, especially its missile launch in 2019, it hasn’t participated in any United Nations sanctions.
According to Anwita Basu, The Economic Intelligence Unit’s lead analyst for Indonesia, the Philippines, and North Korea, “the North Korean economy is basically run by its arms deals”.
North Korea has established connections between various countries in the African Union due to the strong bond they shared in the name of socialism in the 1960s. Another factor that aids them here is only seven countries on the African continent have participated in the United Nations sanctions.
A South African think tank the name the Institute for Security Studies(ISS), the value of annual trade activities between the African States and North Korea has amounted to 216.5 million dollars. This is mainly because Pyongyang has built arms factories in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Madagascar, and Uganda. It has also been contracted to construct military sites in Namibia. North Korea has also sold ballistic missile lines for Egypt and Libya.
It has also been widely speculated that North Korea has also partnered with Iran on nuclear weapons development. A UN 2016 report also stated that North Korea has sold weapons to the middle eastern countries as well.
Cybercrime
Cybercrime in North Korea
It has been reported by multiple sources that there are 6000 hackers based in Pyongyang. Found as maths prodigies in various government-run schools across North Korea, they are trained by the North Korean government in the basics of hacking, from a beginner to advanced levels. Through this knowledge, the hackers steal a lot of money stored worldwide and then they have to contribute the money to the government. A confidential UN report in 2019 reported that the hackers had stolen about 2 billion dollars to fund their country’s nuclear weapon programme.
It is widely believed that North Korean hackers were responsible for the WannaCry ransomware attack that targeted the National Health Service program of the United Kingdom and other governmental-run organizations across the world. They were also reportedly behind 81 million dollars in cyber theft of funds from Bangladesh’s account at the New York Federal Reserve in 2016. This is just not limited to one domain. As per the 2022 Crypto Crime report from Chainlysis, the hackers have also stolen nearly 400 million dollars worth of cryptocurrency last year.
North Korean hackers were also responsible for hacking into Sony Pictures and releasing its confidential data worldwide. This was primarily because Sony Pictures had made a comedy picture about assassinating their leader Kim Jong-un by the name of The Interview.
Picture by Sony Pictures assassinating Kim Jong-un by the name of The Interview
Slave Labour
Between 50,000 and 100,000 North Korean citizens have been sent abroad especially to countries like China and Russia, to work in various labour industries like mining, construction, and textiles. Working conditions are harsh and salaries are virtually non-existent, with constant surveillance ensuring that labourers do not get any leeway. Money is exchanged for the excruciating work, but it goes straight to the pockets of the North Korean government.
Robert Manning, a senior fellow at the North Atlantic Council(the principal decision-making body of the NATO), has said that these funds can also help North Korea by buying the support of various leaders at various international organizations. He also believes the revenue earned through the form of “slave labour” described above is one of its most crucial reasons.
Robert Manning has also said that North Korea has a huge cartel in its own “illicit drug industry”, especially narcotics such as crystal meth. As sanctions continue to ramp up, this is one illegal path that North Korea may push further.
Conclusion
Thus, in this article, we have documented the various sources through which North Korea earns its revenue and how it compares to its geographical neighbours. With the various sanctions looming on its head due to its nuclear weapon programme and the fact that North Korea is not some stranger to famines (it faced one huge famine in the year 1994), we all must meet across a solution in which the basic North Korean does not struggle for basic amenities in roti, kapda, and makaan regardless of the ideology of the government.
FAQs
What is the major source of income for North Korea?
Major sources of income that adds to the economy of North Korea are:
Weapons Trade
Cybercrime
Slave Labour
Drugs
How does North Korea run its economy?
North Korea has an isolated and tightly controlled command economy.
What is the poverty rate in North Korea?
North Korea has a Poverty rate of 60%.
What is North Korea’s main export?
North Korea mainly exports coal.
Which country is the major partner for export-import in North Korea?
China is the biggest market for export-import in North Korea.
