North Korea behind 'WannaCry' global cyber attack : Security firms

Kaspersky and Symantec, two top security firms have confirmed the connection between the ransomware WannaCry and North Korean cybergang Lazarus Group which is known to have government ties.

The WannaCry codes have been found to be similar to a 2015 backdoor created by the government-linked North Korean hackers.

To highlight the probability of the Korean hackers' involvement, Kaspersky discusses in a blog post that the new versions of the ransomware does not have the repeated codes. It also discovered that the attacks have been generated from IP addresses based in North Korea.

The North Korean hackers were implicated in the 2014 attack on Sony Pictures and an $81m heist on a Bangladeshi bank in 2016 and has been known to use and target Bitcoin in its hacking operations, reports The Guardian.

Security researcher Neel Mehta first reported the similarities which were then echoed by other researchers.

The WannaCry ransomware attack has now now hit more than 200,000 computers in 150 countries, crippling hospitals, governments and businesses.