A hacker group formerly linked with North Korea has been found carrying out spear-phishing attacks to compromise the United Nations Security Council officials.

Revealed in a UN report last month, the attacks have occurred this year, targeting as many as 28 UN officials, including at least 11 persons representing six countries of the UN Security Council.

UN officials said they came to know of the attacks after being warned by an anonymous UN member state (country).

The attacks were ascribed to a North Korean hacker group by the codename of Kimsuky.

As per the UN report, Kimsuky operations occurred across March and April this year and comprised a string of spear-phishing operations intended at the Gmail accounts of UN officials.

The emails were intended to look like UN security alerts or requests for interviews from reporters, both planned to persuade officials to access phishing pages or run malware files on their systems.

The country which reported attacks to the UN Security Council also stated that similar campaigns were also launched against members of its own government, with some of the attacks occurring via WhatsApp, and not just email.

Also, the UN was informed that Kimsuky attacks have tremendously tenacious with the North Korean hacker group following “certain individuals throughout the ‘lifetime’ of their [government] career.”

The UN report also observed that this campaign has been active for more than a year.

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