Japan and U.S. Jointly Expose North Korean Hacker Campaign: 30,000 Devices Infected, Associated Wallets Received at Least $10.71 Million

Odaily News: Japan's National Police Agency, together with the U.S. FBI and other agencies, released a report stating that the North Korea-backed hacker group WaterPlum infected more than 30,000 devices across over 100 countries and regions worldwide between December 2025 and July 2026, stealing more than 7,000 pieces of crypto wallet information, with wallets under its control receiving at least approximately $10.71 million in crypto assets.

The group's tactics include impersonating recruiters at crypto companies to trick job seekers into running malicious code to carry out attacks. Japanese police also for the first time seized a "laptop farm" within the country that assisted North Korean IT personnel in working remotely, and disclosed that a suspected North Korean IT worker had applied for an engineer position at bitFlyer but was not hired.