Lazarus Group

By Ashwin Venugopal -

 





Introduction

Lazarus Group is a group of unknown number of cybercriminals working under the North Korean government. They are also known as Guardians of Peace, Whois Team, Hidden Cobra (named by USA), and Zinc (named by Microsoft). It has always been advantageous for the North Korean government   to conduct cyber operations due to its asymmetric threat especially to South Korea. 

Various Attacks

Lazarus Group have targeted many organizations and is responsible for chaos in various countries. Some of its reported attacks are as follows:
  • "Operation Troy", which happened between 2009 and 2012, was the earliest known attack of this group. It utilized unsophisticated distributed denial-of-service attack (DDoS) techniques to target the South Korean government in Seoul. 

  • During 2014, the group attacked on Sony Pictures via more sophisticated techniques, indicating their advancing technology.

  • Lazarus Group has also targeted banks of various countries like Vietnam, Taiwan, Ecuador, Poland, Mexico, etc.

  • It is highly likely that this group was also involved in the WannaCry ransomware attack worldwide in 2017. 

  • During the COVID-19 pandemic, this group also targeted many major pharmaceutical companies researching COVID-19 vaccines. 

Lazarus Group utilized many spear-phishing techniques to lure their victims and launched many attacks.

Conclusion

The Lazarus Group are cybercriminals who had targeted many organizations, resulting in total chaos. Hence, strong and advanced techniques are required to successfully protect a network from its attack and/or mitigate its adverse effects. 










































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