Bluenoroff is Kaspersky's name for a financially motivated unit within the broader Lazarus formation. Kaspersky introduced the designation publicly in 2017 while documenting bank intrusions connected to the 2016 Bangladesh Central Bank theft and other attacks on financial institutions and SWIFT-connected systems. The group used watering holes, backdoors, compromised infrastructure, and malware tailored to banking environments, with activity spanning multiple countries. By 2022, Kaspersky described a shift from banks and SWIFT servers toward cryptocurrency businesses as the group's principal source of illicit income. Operators created convincing cryptocurrency software companies and applications, delivered backdoored updates, and used malicious documents and social engineering to abuse trust. The reporting portrays Bluenoroff as able to draw on the larger formation's malware, exploits, and infrastructure while maintaining a distinct financial objective.
Liberian Financial Institution
#LiberianFI • 2018-06
🇱🇷 Liberia
The Liberian Financial Institution incident is tracked in UN sanctions and financial-incident timeline reporting as part of a broader set of cyber-enabled thefts against financial institutions and cryptocurrency exchanges. The linked UN evidence attributes the wider activity to DPRK cyber actors, many operating under Reconnaissance General Bureau direction, and frames the theft and laundering of proceeds as sanctions evasion and revenue generation, but the provided excerpts do not include institution-specific malware, infrastructure, or intrusion-chain details.
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Related Reports
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Affected Countries
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98
Months Since
Related Actors
First seen: 2017-04 •
Last seen: 2026-07
Related Reports
2021-03-23
Carnegie Endowment
2019-08-31
UN