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A Reuters report published on Friday says North Korea rewards its top hackers — the operatives behind some of the largest cryptocurrency thefts in history — with spacious apartments in Pyongyang and large cash awards in U.S. dollars, even as they work long hours under strict surveillance.
The hackers are tasked with heists like the October attack on Binance, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange, which netted about $6.3 billion — the biggest cryptocurrency theft on record. The FBI and Binance have said North Korea was responsible for the attack, a claim Pyongyang denies. Blockchain investigators have attributed the theft to a North Korean group known as TraderTraitor, which the FBI says is affiliated with the Lazarus Group.
The programme that produces the hackers is more than a decade old. Each year it picks about 200 of the smartest middle-school students to study computer engineering, according to defectors and analysts, with selection beginning as early as age 11 or 12. "They are actually one of Kim Jong Un's secret weapons," said Kim Heung-kwang, a North Korean defector who trained hackers for the state before fleeing to South Korea in 2004.
North Korea set up a cyber unit in 1998 and elevated its status after Kim Jong Un came to power, declaring in 2013 that cyber warfare was, along with nuclear weapons and missiles, an "all purpose sword" crucial to the country's strike capability. South Korea's National Intelligence Service estimated in 2024 that about 8,400 people work in the North's cyberwarfare operations.
The rewards for success are substantial. A successful exploit can earn the hackers' military unit as much as 30 percent of the heist's profits in U.S. dollars, and top performers can receive a flat in the capital where their parents can also stay. The flats can measure as much as 132 square metres (1,420 sq ft). Successful hackers are also eligible for membership of the ruling party and high-status marriages into elite families, and can travel to friendly countries such as China, where the internet is far freer.
But the work comes at a price. The hackers work in cramped conditions, often more than 10 hours a day, under constant surveillance, and must meet strict monthly dollar targets — facing humiliation or other punishments if they fall short.
The Lazarus Group, also known as APT38, was accused by the United States in 2022 of stealing hundreds of millions of dollars worth of cryptocurrency from the Ronin blockchain network. North Korean hackers were also blamed for the theft of about $1.5 billion from the Bybit exchange in February 2025. Kim Yo Jong, the sister of the North Korean leader, publicly rejected the FBI's attribution of the Binance hack on November 2 and again on November 4. North Korea denies involvement in cyberattacks, and the reported rewards are difficult to independently verify.