David McCloskey
Sunday Times bestselling spy novelist and former CIA analyst who wrote for the President's Daily Brief and served on field rotations across the Middle East.
“It's thought that roughly 50% of North Korea's funding for purchasing components, largely foreign, for its ballistic missile programs is now supplied by these cyber heists, which is wild.”
The Rest Is Classified · Geopolitics & World Affairs · November 2026
Context
Discussing the Binance theft attributed to North Korea, McCloskey explains why these heists matter: the regime needs billions a year in hard currency, which is otherwise hard for it to get.
Transcript
…two women totally unaffiliated with the North Korean Hackers agencies that they were part of a prank. And they went up to him and smeared binary nerve agent on him that when it was combined, killed him as VX. And they also, lastly, the RGB has a department called the Enemy Collapse Sabotage Bureau.
…$12.8 billion in cryptocurrency over more than 100 incidents in the last 10 years or so. And that they're responsible for 89% of all crypto hack losses in 2026. So, you know, they are basically the core of hacking all crypto around the world is coming from these. North Korean Hackers hackers.
And if they have taken almost 13 billion over roughly the last decade, if that $3 billion from the Binance heist holds, I mean, they'll have gotten nearly a quarter of their haul over the last decade in about 20 minutes. Yeah. It is absolutely remarkable. Now, this is, I mean, this is the key point when North Korean is they're not just stealing this money for fun. The state, the North Korean Hackers, needs about $6 billion a year. So this kind of criminal operations are a very significant portion of its income. And it's income that the North Korean Hackers hard currency, it could convert this into hard currency as sort of it moves down the line. That's hard for the North Korean Hackers to get. And it's thought that roughly 50% of North Korean currency funding for purchasing components, largely foreign for its ballistic missile programs, is now supplied by these cyber heists, which is which is wild.
Can you imagine what it was like in the operations room of these hackers when they're watching the money come out? As someone said, it's like the end of Oceans 11, where the fountains of the Bellagio in Las Vegas go up and they're all kind of standing there going, good job, guys, because you've…
Except in this case, I think you might, instead of the bellagio fountains, as you've seen, you have a bunch of guys probably sitting in Cheeto-stained gamer chairs working on energy drinks and pop-tarts and screaming at screens, which is, you know, if you're looking to adapt this story, it's…
they probably get a medal. But we should note, David, that North Korean Hackers denied any role in this. A sister of North Korean Hackers, Kim Jong-un, she responded to allegations and said they were a trite provocation. This is a sinister attempt to damage the international image of the DPRK…
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