The European Union -Thursday- imposed travel and financial transactions sanctions on a section of the Russian Military Intelligence Service, and on companies from North Korea and China, on suspicion of participating in major cyber attacks around the world.
This is the first time that the European Union has imposed sanctions due to cyberattacks, and the sanctions include preventing the entry of the European Union and the freezing of assets, in addition to preventing the citizens and entities of the Union from putting money at the disposal of persons and entities included in the list.
"The council decided to impose restrictive measures on 6 people and 3 entities who carried out or participated in several cyber attacks," the union's foreign policy official, Josep Borrell, said in a statement.
He added that the sanctions are targeting Russian military intelligence, a Chinese company and a North Korean company linked to an electronic hacker group, 4 Russian citizens and two Chinese citizens.
The European Union accused Russian intelligence of carrying out two cyber attacks in June 2017, which targeted several companies in Europe and caused huge financial losses, and the device was also accused of launching two attacks on the electricity network in Ukraine in 2015 and 2016.
Four members of the Russian Military Intelligence Service were also punished for their alleged participation in an attempt to launch a cyber attack on the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons in the Netherlands in April 2018.
The North Korean company, Chosun Expo, was also suspected of providing support to the Lazarus Group, which is responsible for a series of major attacks worldwide, including the theft of $ 81 million from the Bangladesh central bank’s account in the US Federal Reserve in New York in 2016, in the largest A scam online in the world.
There are also allegations that the company is linked to an attack on Sony Pictures in Hollywood to prevent the release of a satirical movie about North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in 2014.
The European Union has also punished the Chinese company, Haitai Technology Development, accused of supporting cyber attacks known as the "Operation Hopper Operation", which was aimed at stealing sensitive commercial data from multinational companies around the world. Sanctions were also imposed on two Chinese individuals for their alleged involvement in the attacks.
Last year, the US Treasury imposed sanctions on Lazarus Group and two other electronic piracy groups in North Korea, for its alleged participation in the attacks on Sony Pictures, the Central Bank of Bangladesh and other attacks.