If you have never heard of the Lazarus group, you are in for a rollercoaster ride. I spent months investigating how a tiny, unknown group from a country with limited access to the world and the Internet became a worldwide security menace.
To grasp how complicated this shadowing group is, we must unravel their hacks and figure out if the Lazarus group is the villain, or a phantom, a convenient scapegoat for governments and corporations to mask incompetence or advance hidden agendas.
However, a more complicated question we would try to answer ~~what if the truth is far stranger? What if Lazarus is neither wholly real nor entirely fictional, but a shapeshifting myth birthed by paranoia, geopolitical games, and the irresistible allure of a good conspiracy?
Follow me down the rabbit hole.
November 2014, Sony Pictures Entertainment was infiltrated, leaking unreleased films, executive emails, and sensitive data. The catalyst? Sony’s planned release of The Interview, a comedy depicting Kim Jong-un’s assassination. The FBI swiftly blamed North Korea, citing code similarities to earlier attacks.
But there were many questions which included:
- The hack exposed Sony’s internal racism and sexism, fuelling speculation it was an inside job.
- Cybersecurity firm Novetta found malware linked to Russian hackers embedded in the attack.
- North Korea denied involvement but praised the hack as “righteous.”
The incident became Lazarus’ origin story—but cracks in the narrative hinted at deeper mysteries. Was this a false flag designed to demonize a pariah state and can we trust the FBI?
Our story takes a deep turn from morally motivated to one of finance and in February 2016, hackers breached Bangladesh’s central bank, almost stealing 1 billion via fraudulent SWIFT transfers. A typo—“fandation” instead of “foundation”—alerted Deutsche Bank, limiting the haul to 81 million. The digital fingerprints pointed to Lazarus, but inconsistencies lingered:
- How could a nation with 28 websites and a censored internet execute such a sophisticated attack?
- Most stolen funds vanished into Philippine casinos, implicating global crime syndicates.
- Former NSA analyst Jake Williams argued, “Blaming North Korea lets the real masterminds walk free.”
As I ponder on the questions, trying to find answers to the Lazarus group makes me wonder if the group is as sophisticated, or just theatrics ~~ wannacry virus, CoinCheck (in 2018), Harmony Bridge (in 2022), Atomic Wallet (in 2023) and most recently the Bybit 1.4 billion hacks.
The United nations claims Lazarus funds 40% of North Korea’s missile program, blockchain analysts ErgoBTC counter: “These heists reek of Western intelligence. North Korea doesn’t have the talent or tech.
Cash Cow or Conspiracy Theory
The cybersecurity industry is worth over $200 billion, and nothing drives sales like fear. Companies like FireEye, CrowdStrike, and Kaspersky have built empires selling “Lazarus Protection” tools—firewalls, threat detectors, and blockchain audits designed to keep the boogeyman at bay.
But what if the threat is exaggerated—or even fabricated?
In 2016, a mysterious group called the Shadow Brokers leaked a trove of hacking tools allegedly stolen from the NSA. Among them was “EternalBlue,” the exploit later used in the WannaCry ransomware attack attributed to Lazarus. But here’s the twist: some of the leaked tools bore striking similarities to malware used in earlier Lazarus operations.
So did Lazarus' group steal these tools from the NSA, or did the NSA have a rogue unit tasked with carrying out this kind of attack?
Who stands to gain from all of these?
Cybersecurity firms are the big winners here, creating a perpetual demand for their products.
Every new attack, whether real or imagined, becomes a marketing opportunity. In this theory, Lazarus is less a hacking group and more a corporate cash cow—a digital version of the military-industrial complex, where fear is the ultimate commodity.
The Ultimate Myth
What if Lazarus doesn’t exist? What if the group is a complete fabrication—a cyber-bogeyman conjured by governments and corporations to justify surveillance, control narratives, and manipulate public opinion?
The evidence is circumstantial. No Lazarus hacker has ever been caught. All attributions rely on patterns in code—patterns that could easily be faked or manipulated called false flag operations.
In a world of deepfakes, AI-generated text, and algorithmic propaganda, the line between reality and fiction has never been blurrier. Lazarus, in this scenario, is the ultimate myth—a story well conjured to create this illusion of good versus bad.
Think about it, the motive is tantalizing. After Edward Snowden’s 2013 revelations exposed the NSA’s mass surveillance programs, public trust in intelligence agencies plummeted. By framing North Korea as a cyber-boogeyman in 2014, the U.S. could rebuild its image as a defender of global security while justifying expanded cyberwar budgets.
The Lazarus group, becomes a convenient smokescreen—a digital ghost army deployed to distract from domestic overreach and fund covert operations telling the world we are fighting cyber warfare but who are the enemies?
We all are.
Conclusion
Whether real or imagined, the Lazarus myth reveals a disturbing truth: fear is a powerful tool of control. Governments use it to justify surveillance and military spending. Corporations use it to sell products. Media outlets use it to drive clicks. And the public, desperate for answers in an increasingly chaotic world, clings to the myth like a life raft.
In the end, the truth about Lazarus may be less important than what the group represents: our collective vulnerability in the digital age, our willingness to trade truth for security, and our complicity in the systems that exploit our fears.
So, is Lazarus a pawn in the game of global security? The answer is yes—and no—and both. In the age of cyber surrealism, the only certainty is uncertainty.
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