Vladimir Putin is struggling to keep his battlefield stocked up to the point where Russia has increased penalties for those who refuse to fight his Ukraine war. On a related note, that war has caused Putin to lose plenty of allies, to the point where no country even wants free giveaways of Russian crops. As well, Putin is not exactly the most desired ally, given that those associated with him could eventually be charged with war crimes. That’s where Kim Jong Un comes in because he’s surely not afraid of such an accusation, given that he’s already responsible for an assortment crimes against humanity on his own.
Putin needs allies so badly that he probably doesn’t even care how bad this looks, but it isn’t exactly a move that sounds like it will be respected by elite North Korean government-associated hackers, who reportedly pulled off a months-long breach of a “major Russian missile developer” in 2021-2022, according to Reuters, which suggests the accessed data could have been used to further North Korea’s own missile program. Uh-oh:
Reuters found cyber-espionage teams linked to the North Korean government, which security researchers call ScarCruft and Lazarus, secretly installed stealthy digital backdoors into systems at NPO Mashinostroyeniya, a rocket design bureau based in Reutov, a small town on the outskirts of Moscow.
Reuters could not determine whether any data was taken during the intrusion or what information may have been viewed. In the months following the digital break-in Pyongyang announced several developments in its banned ballistic missile programme but it is not clear if this was related to the breach.
In other words, North Korea doesn’t even respect the boundaries of its allies and will use them to further their own offensive weaponry. Clearly, this makes Putin’s friendship with Kim Jong Un look even worse, especially since Kim Jong Un is so obsessed with this type of weapon that he recently held a victory parade full of intercontinental ballistic missiles. There’s no word yet on whether those missiles were partially engineered using technology stolen by the North Korean hackers, but it’s notable that Putin is likely using North Korea as a supplier of nukes for Belaris. What if he’s purchasing technology that was actually manufactured using Russia’s own secrets?
That’s a bit too circular to consider, so perhaps the biggest takeaway here is that not even one of Putin’s most fearsome allies is putting their foot down about respecting the Russian president.
(Via Reuters)