Washington has accused Pyongyang of ramping up a cyberwarfare programme responsible for the theft of billions of dollars in virtual assets in recent years, turning hacking into a key source of foreign currency in the face of biting sanctions over its nuclear and weapons programmes.

In a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency, an unnamed foreign ministry spokesperson said the US government had been “trying to spread incorrect understanding” about North Korea, “talking about the non-existent ‘cyber threat'”.

“This is nothing but an absurd slander to tarnish the image of our country by spreading false information in pursuit of political purposes,” it said.

The US justice department in April sentenced two Americans for helping North Koreans obtain remote IT work with US companies and raising more millions of dollars in illicit revenue for its weapons programmes.

More than 100 US companies were targeted, including a number of Fortune 500 firms and a defence contractor in the multi-year scheme, the justice department said.

The ruse “placed North Korean IT workers on the payrolls of unwitting US companies and in US computer systems, thereby potentially harming our national security”, said John Eisenberg, assistant attorney general for national security.

Google analysts and other cybersecurity experts said in April that hackers linked to North Korea were suspected of an ambitious attack on an inconspicuous but widely used software package.

A UN panel estimated in 2024 that North Korean cyberattacks since 2017 had stolen more than US$3 billion in cryptocurrency.

The stolen money helps fund the development of weapons of mass destruction, the panel said.

Pyongyang’s cyber-warfare programme dates back to at least the mid-1990s, and the country has been dubbed “the world’s most prolific cyber-thief” by a cybersecurity firm.