North Korean cyber threats sought to be combated by new consultative group

Mounting North Korean cybersecurity activities leveraged to finance the country's weapons program have prompted the U.S., Japan, and South Korea to create a new high-level consultative group aimed at jointly averting such threats, according to The Record, a news site by cybersecurity firm Recorded Future. Other global cybersecurity threats will also be tackled by the group in quarterly meetings, noted the South Korean Presidential Office's announcement. South Korea has also recently sought to coordinate cybersecurity response efforts with Australia through a new bilateral working group. Both developments come after North Korea's Lazarus Group was blamed by the FBI for being behind three cryptocurrency platform heists in June. The U.S. also joined forces with Japan, India, and Australia last year to form the Quad Cybersecurity Partnership, which sought to foster cooperation in strengthening software, user data, and supply chain security amid increasing North Korean and Chinese threat operations, but Chinese officials noted the effort to only fuel "geopolitical rivalry."