A U.S. State Department official said North Korea stole virtual assets worth 3 trillion won over the past year, and that sanctioning North Korea's illegal cyber activities that threaten the security of the United States and its allies has emerged as Washington's top immediate priority.
On the 12th (local time), Jonathan Fritz, a senior deputy assistant secretary at the U.S. State Department, defined North Korea's illegal cyber activities as "the United States' top priority" at a briefing at the New York Foreign Press Center, saying it is "because it includes protecting U.S. citizens and corporations facing significant national security challenges."
The briefing was arranged ahead of the Multinational Sanctions Monitoring Team (MSMT) explaining to United Nations member states its report on North Korea's illegal cyber activities conducted in violation of U.N. sanctions.
MSMT is a monitoring body formed by 11 countries, including the United States, Korea, and Japan, to oversee implementation of U.N. Security Council (UNSC) sanctions on North Korea, and it was launched as an alternative after Russia ended the activities of the existing panel of experts in 2024.
According to an MSMT report released in Oct. last year, North Korea stole virtual assets worth $2.84 billion (about 4.2 trillion won) from Jan. 2024 to Sept. 2025. From Jan. to Sept. 2025 alone, the amount stolen reached about $1.65 billion.
Fritz said, "North Korean cyber actors and IT workers are continuing malicious activities," and "since the report's release in October last year, we assess that by the end of 2025 the annual aggregates of stolen amounts surpassed a total of $2 billion."
Earlier, a private analytics firm released an estimate that North Korea's cryptocurrency theft in 2025 would reach $2 billion. This is seen as U.S. authorities effectively confirming the figures.
Fritz emphasized, "We are not going to sit idly by while North Korea preys on U.S. corporations and citizens and citizens of allied countries to obtain U.S. dollars through sophisticated transnational criminal schemes," adding, "President Donald Trump has said multiple times that he is ready to talk with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un."
As for the statement by North Korea's Permanent Mission to the U.N. that day claiming MSMT's existence and activities are illegal, he offered an overall assessment that it is "a good sign that North Korea showed a fairly strong reaction."