Kamluk said he could not conclusively say that Pyongyang was behind the attacks because it was possible the hackers went to great effort to make it look like they were from North Korea, or that North Koreans were working with others.
Still, he said that North Korean involvement was the most likely explanation.
Separately last month, U.S. officials also cast suspicion on Pyongyang. An official briefed on the probe told Reuters in Washington that the FBI believed North Korea was responsible.
And Rick Ledgett, the deputy director of the National Security Agency, told reporters at an Aspen Institute event on March 15 that private sector research tying North Korea to the Bangladesh bank heist was strong.
“If that’s true, then that says to me that the North Koreans are robbing banks,” Ledgett said.
“That’s a big deal.”
The Bangladesh Bank heist was one in a string of financially motivated cyber attacks by a division of Lazarus dubbed Bluenoroff, the Kaspersky report said. Targets included banks, financial and trading companies, casinos and digital currency businesses in at least 18 nations, the report said.
Adrian Nish, head of threat intelligence with cyber security firm BAE Systems, said Kaspersky’s findings were significant, even though they did not conclusively link Pyongyang to Lazarus.
“It is significant further evidence,” said Nish, who led a team at BAE that in May 2016 was the first to link the Bangladesh heist and the Sony hack.
