In a sophisticated impersonation attack against the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea (HRNK), hackers have used the fake identity of a South Korean researcher and recent NK News coverage to trick their victim.

An NK News analysis of raw data provided by HRNK showed that attackers had registered an email address closely resembling the personal account of a research staffer at George Washington University in Washington, D.C.

The account was used to send two deceivingly well-written messages in English that purported to provide a link to an article written by NK News contributor Andrei Lankov, showing a thorough