North slams Seoul-Washington-Tokyo statement targeting its cyber threats

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un inspects an uranium enrichment facility and research center on Jan. 29. [NEWS1]

North Korea on Monday denounced a recent joint statement by South Korea, the United States and Japan criticizing the regime’s malicious cyber activities, calling it a “political farce.”
 
The Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) issued the criticism in a statement by the Foreign Ministry’s press chief after the three countries voiced “serious concerns” in their joint statement last week over evolving malicious cyber activities by North Korean IT workers.
 
 
They accused North Korean IT workers of using AI tools and other methods for cyber activities aimed at funding Pyongyang’s illicit weapons programs and vowed to work together in response.
 
The KCNA “strongly denounced” the statement, calling it a “political farce” aimed at internationally propagating “groundless” rumors about cyber threats and smearing North Korea’s image to increase pressure.
 
“The more the U.S. and its followers become obsessed with outdated and hostile acts[…] the greater the insurmountable distrust and hostility” between North Korea and the United States will become, the KCNA said.
 
The regime will seek “practical measures” to safeguard its interests from increasingly “explicit” acts by “hostile countries” in cyberspace and other areas, and to nullify their “malicious effects,” the KCNA noted.

Yonhap