A man suspected of working for one of North Korea’s military intelligence agencies has been charged with involvement in a conspiracy to hack into American health care providers, prosecutors said today.
A grand jury in Kansas City, Kansas, has indicted Rim Jong Hyok on charges of money laundering and using the money to fund cyberattacks on defense, technology and government entities around the world.
The attacks on American hospitals and other health care providers have disrupted patient care, U.S. officials said.
“While North Korea uses these types of cybercrimes to circumvent international sanctions and fund its political and military ambitions, the impact of these rampant acts has a direct impact on the citizens of Kansas,” said Stephen A. Cyrus, an FBI agent based in Kansas City.
US Justice Department officials stressed that the attack on a Kansas hospital, which they did not identify, occurred in May 2021, when hackers encrypted the medical center's files and servers.
The hospital paid about $100,000 (about €92,000 at the current exchange rate) in Bitcoin to recover its data. The US justice system said it had recovered the ransom, as well as payment from a Colorado healthcare provider affected by the same variant of the Maui ransomware.
The Justice Department has opened several criminal cases related to North Korean hackers in recent years, often alleging a profit-making motive that differentiates the activity from that of hackers in Russia and China.
In 2021, the department charged three North Korean computer programmers with a wide range of global hacking, including a destructive attack on a U.S. movie studio and the attempted theft and extortion of more than $1.3 billion from banks and businesses.
Investigators said Hyok is a member of a North Korean government military intelligence agency and allegedly conspired to use ransomware to carry out cyber espionage attacks against U.S. hospitals and other government and technology entities in South Korea and China.
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