US charges North Korean programmer for WannaCry virus, Sony Pictures attack

The US charged a North Korean programmer Thursday with some of the most dramatic global hacking cases of recent years, alleging they were carried on behalf of the regime in Pyongyang.

The hacks included the WannaCry 2.0 virus, the 2104 Sony Pictures attack, and the 2016 cyber-heist of Bangladesh's central bank.

The US Justice and Treasury Departments said Park Jin Hyok was "part of the conspiracy" that masterminded those notorious hacks "on behalf of the Government of North Korea or the Workers' Party of Korea."

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"North Korea has demonstrated a pattern of disruptive and harmful cyber activity that is inconsistent with the growing consensus on what constitutes responsible state behaviour in cyberspace," the Treasury said in a statement.

"Our policy is to hold North Korea accountable and demonstrate to the regime that there is a cost to its provocative and irresponsible actions," it added.

WannaCry ransomware attack was a global cyber-threat triggered by WannaCry crypto-worm earlier in May last year.

The cyber-attack aimed at encrypting data on systems running on Microsoft Windows operating system and demanded ransom in the form Bitcoin currency.

The cyber-threat paralysed companies, banks, hospitals and digitised sectors all across the globe.

Also, police in Thailand had seized a computer server operated by a notorious hacker group from North Korea blamed for the infamous Sony Pictures hack in 2014.

Thailand’s Computer Emergency Response Team (ThaiCERT) announced that it took control of the equipment that the security firm McAfee had linked to Hidden Cobra – also known as the Lazarus Group – that is believed to be behind a number of high-profile attacks.

The US had imposed new sanctions on North Korea in response to a cyber-attack against Sony Pictures Entertainment in 2014.