'Revealing' the perfect weapon that has gone unnoticed in Kim Jong-un's hands

While the world is too focused on North Korea's nuclear and missile programs, the Kim Jong-un regime has had a free hand in developing another "near-perfect weapon" that brings in billions of dollars a year.

According to South Korean newspaper Chosun Ilbo, North Korea's cyber attack skills have been developed to a "near-perfect" level, helping Pyongyang earn about $1 billion a year.

"Hackers could bring North Korea $1 billion a year, equivalent to one-third of the country's export value," according to Chosun Ilbo.

North Korean hackers are believed to be capable of carrying out cyber attacks that can disable corporate networks, steal money from banks and cause serious damage to infrastructure.

North Korea is believed to have more than 6,000 hackers, tasked with stealing secrets and money from foreign companies, organizations and governments, the New York Times quoted a US intelligence expert as saying. US intelligence officials have long ranked North Korea as one of the countries that can carry out dangerous cyber attacks against the United States, along with Russia, China and Iran.

North Korea began training hackers in the 1990s. Previously, North Korean hackers mainly attacked military targets. However, since leader Kim Jong-un took power in 2011, the attack targets of North Korean hackers have expanded significantly. In addition to carrying out military missions, North Korean hackers are also assigned economic, intelligence and propaganda tasks.

North Korean hackers have been accused of stealing money from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and attacking South Korean banks and broadcasters in 2012, but Pyongyang has denied the allegations.

Notably, in 2014, US intelligence officials accused North Korean hackers of attacking Sony Pictures, destroying its computer systems and releasing sensitive company data in retaliation for the studio's film criticizing leader Kim Jong-un.

"Everyone focuses on atomic bombs, nuclear weapons. But there is another type of weapon that is much more dangerous," Robert Silvers, former assistant for cybersecurity policy at the US Department of Homeland Security, warned about the danger of North Korean hackers.

Earlier this year, the US Department of Homeland Security issued a warning about a North Korean hacker group called “Hidden Cobra”.

The Hidden Cobra group has been hacking and compromising a number of victims since 2009. The group is named after a suspect in the $81 million heist from the Bangladesh central bank. U.S. officials say one of the hackers' main activities is to raise money to support the North Korean government and its weapons programs.

“We have been concerned for some time that North Korea will retaliate against the current escalation of tensions through cyberattacks, specifically targeting our financial sectors, which they are absolutely adept at compared to South Korea,” said Dmitri Alperovitch, co-founder of cybersecurity firm Crowdstrike.

According to Danviet