On Wednesday, Israel made a statement claiming that it had avoided a North Korean cyber group called Lazarus’s attempt to steal sensitive information from the country’s leading defense companies. Israel’s Defense Ministry did not specifically link North Korea to the Lazarus group, however, Lazarus is known to be a prominent North Korean-backed advanced persistent threat group.
Lazarus was sanctioned by the US in 2019, as the group has a complicated history of nation-state hacking and cyberattacks against high profile targets including government agencies, financial services infrastructure, the defense industry, and foreign business. Israel reported that Lazarus operators created fake LinkedIn profiles as part of a phishing campaign, reaching out to Israel’s leading defense companies and offering them jobs. In the process of contacting these defense employees, Lazarus reportedly attempted to compromise the targets’ computers to steal sensitive information.
Read More: Israel Says It Beat Attack by North Korean Cyber Group Under U.S. Sanctions