Hackers from the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) have stolen over 1.5 trillion won ($1.2 billion) worth of bitcoin and other virtual assets over the previous five years, South Korea's intelligence service claimed on Friday, further alleging that more than half of the attacks in question took place this year.

South Korean officials say that the DPRK, in light of the UN sanctions and the COVID-19 pandemic, has become reliable on crypto hacking and other operations carried out in cyberspace to fund its economy that has been hit by sanctions from all sides.

The DPRK has focused on cybercrime since the UN tightened its sanctions in 2017 in response to its nuclear and missile tests, according to South Korea's National Intelligence Service (NIS), making Pyongyang, according to South Korean data, one of the best at stealing digital assets.

The UN sanctions imposed on the Korean people back in 2016-2017 banned important exports from the DPRK, such as coal, textiles, and seafood, and forced member nations to deport DPRK citizens who had been working abroad. After enacting highly strict restrictions to combat the spread of COVID-19, the DPRK's economy experienced significant blows.

The NIS then claimed that so-called "state-sponsored" hackers from the DPRK have so hacked their way through $1.5 trillion won ($1.2 billion) worth of virtual assets worldwide since 2017, including $800 billion ($626 million) just this year. Reportedly, South Korea contributed more than 100 billion won ($78 million) of the total.

South Korean officials are expecting DPRK hackers to conduct more cyberattacks in the coming year with the aim of taking technologies and confidential information from the South regarding their foreign policy and national security.

Senior US, South Korean, and Japanese officials agreed earlier in the month to up their efforts in a bid to curb DPRK cyber activities.

In February, a panel of United Nations specialists stated that the DPRK was still stealing hundreds of millions of dollars from financial institutions, cryptocurrency businesses, and exchanges.

This comes as the latest multimillion-dollar cyber heist in DeFi - or decentralized finance - after $625 million were stolen from Ronin Network in March in a hack with the US blamed on the DPRK.

According to Wintermute CEO Evgeny Gaevoy, the cryptocurrency company has "been hacked for about $160 million" just three months ago.

In addition, Nomad, another company, also recently said hackers stole almost $200 million in assets.

Wintermute functions as a "market marker" for crypto, holding a large inventory of a particular asset to keep the market liquid by ensuring users that there are people to trade with.

Gaevoy revealed that of the 90 assets that were stolen, only 2 had a value of a million dollars. He made no mention of which tokens were stolen, saying: "We will communicate with both affected teams asap."