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South Korea Police Arrests Defector Trying to Cross back to North Korea

South Korean police said they had arrested a defector who tried to return to North Korea. (Reuters file photo)
South Korean police said they had arrested a defector who tried to return to North Korea. (Reuters file photo)
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South Korea Police Arrests Defector Trying to Cross back to North Korea

South Korean police said they had arrested a defector who tried to return to North Korea. (Reuters file photo)
South Korean police said they had arrested a defector who tried to return to North Korea. (Reuters file photo)

South Korean police said on Sunday they had arrested a defector who tried to return to North Korea after a similar, successful crossing in July escalated tensions on the peninsula.

The defector, who had fled to South Korea in 2018, was suspected of breaking into a military training site in South Korea’s border town of Cheorwon on Thursday to head back to North Korea.

“The man is under police investigation. We are looking into details such as why he tried to cross the border,” a policewoman said by telephone. She said she could not confirm the date of the arrest.

In July, a 24-year-old defector returned to North Korea the way he left in 2017, going through a drainage ditch and swimming across the Han River to the North.

When the 24-year-old defector illegally returned to North Korea in July, the “runaway” prompted the government to launch an investigation into the military unit responsible for the crossing.

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US Sanctions Beijing-based Cyber Group for Alleged Hacking Role

(FILES) The US Treasury Department building is seen in Washington, DC, January 19, 2023. (Photo by SAUL LOEB / AFP)
(FILES) The US Treasury Department building is seen in Washington, DC, January 19, 2023. (Photo by SAUL LOEB / AFP)
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US Sanctions Beijing-based Cyber Group for Alleged Hacking Role

(FILES) The US Treasury Department building is seen in Washington, DC, January 19, 2023. (Photo by SAUL LOEB / AFP)
(FILES) The US Treasury Department building is seen in Washington, DC, January 19, 2023. (Photo by SAUL LOEB / AFP)

The US Treasury on Friday sanctioned a Beijing-based cybersecurity company for its alleged role in multiple hacking incidents targeting critical US infrastructure.

The Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control hit Integrity Technology Group, Inc. with sanctions Friday morning, for conducting multiple hacks against US victims, including incidents attributed to Flax Typhoon, a Chinese state-sponsored campaign that targets US critical infrastructure.

The sanctions come a few days after Treasury reported that Chinese hackers remotely accessed several US Treasury Department workstations and unclassified documents in a major cybersecurity incident.

The Treasury Department said it learned of the problem on Dec. 8, when a third-party software service provider, BeyondTrust, flagged that hackers had stolen a key “used by the vendor to secure a cloud-based service used to remotely provide technical support” to workers.

Friday's sanctions do not appear to be related to the Dec. 8 Treasury hack.
According to The Associated Press, Treasury Acting Under Secretary Bradley Smith said the US will disrupt cyber threats "as we continue working collaboratively to harden public and private sector cyber defenses.”

The sanctions block access to US property and bank accounts and prevent the targeted people and companies from doing business with Americans.
US officials are continuing to grapple with the fallout of a massive Chinese cyberespionage campaign known as Salt Typhoon that gave officials in Beijing access to private texts and phone conversations of an unknown number of Americans.