United States: The Google’s anti-hacking unit has reported that the North Korean hackers exploited South Korea’s deadly Halloween crowd crush to target internet users.

According to the Threat Analysis Group at Google, the hackers planted malicious software in Microsoft Office documents disguised to look like a South Korean government report on the Halloween crush.

At least 158 people had died in the Halloween tragedy due to a crowd surge, which occurred when Halloween partygoers became stuck in a narrow alley in Seoul’s Itaewon neighborhood.

Based on the statements from Google, this incident was widely reported on and the lure takes advantage of widespread public interest in the accident.

Threat Analysis Group claimed that it had traced the activity to a group of North Korean government-backed hackers known as APT37, which has a history of targeting South Korean users, North Korean defectors, policymakers, journalists and human rights activists.

The Google had reported a related software vulnerability to Microsoft within hours of its discovery.

North Korean hackers have always been accused of several cyberattacks across the world, many of them cyberthefts aimed at making funds for the cash-strapped regime of Mr. Kim Jong-un.

The United Nations panel of experts has previously accused Pyongyang of using hacked money to support North Korea’s illicit development of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles.

Earlier, the US Department of Justice had charged three computer programmers who were related to the North Korean military with extorting or stealing more than $1.3 billion in cash and cryptocurrency through a series of cyberattacks.

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