North Korean hackers attack Diehl Defense company

North Korean hackers have launched a cyberattack on the German defense company Diehl Defense.

This was reported by Spiegel.

The attack could have been aimed at stealing confidential information related to defense projects or technologies used in the production of weapons.

According to the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution and Counterterrorism, this attack could be related to the signing of a contract between Diehl and the South Korean Ministry of Defense for the purchase of IRIS-T air defense missiles.

It should be noted that such cyberattacks are part of North Korea’s broader strategy to gain technological advantages through espionage and cyberactivity, especially in the military, where access to the latest developments is critical to maintaining competitiveness on the world stage.

Currently, the suspects in this cyberattack are the hacker group Kimsuky, which tried to outwit Diehl employees with fake and allegedly lucrative job offers from American defense contractors.

According to experts from the American cybersecurity company Mandiant, a subsidiary of Google, the hackers’ main plan was to infect the company’s computers with virus software and steal the necessary documentation.

It is not yet known how much information the North Korean hackers were able to obtain and whether the leakage is ongoing.

The cooperation between Germany’s Diehl Defense and Korea Aerospace Industries began in 2017.

At that time, the Korean manufacturer decided to integrate European aviation weapons on the aircraft, as the KF-21 will be offered for export around the world in the future.

In addition to infrared-guided missiles, integration work is currently underway with the Meteor missile, which is to become the main radar missile in the aircraft’s weapons system.

Earlier, Militarnyi reported that the second prototype of the KF-21 aircraft had launched a Meteor air-to-air guided missile from MBDA.