The U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control on 8 July sanctioned North Korean national Song Kum Hyok, describing him as a “malicious cyber actor” linked to the Andariel hacking unit of the Reconnaissance General Bureau. Treasury said Song orchestrated a scheme that placed North Korean information-technology specialists—operating largely from China and Russia—into remote jobs at unwitting foreign companies by using stolen U.S. identities, then funneled the earnings to Pyongyang. OFAC simultaneously blacklisted Russian facilitator Gayk Asatryan and four companies—Asatryan LLC, Fortuna LLC, Songkwang Trading and Saenal Trading—accused of contracting dozens of DPRK IT workers under long-term agreements. All property and interests of the designated persons subject to U.S. jurisdiction are now blocked, and American entities are barred from dealing with them. Treasury officials said the action targets a growing revenue stream that supports North Korea’s weapons of mass destruction and ballistic-missile programs. Washington has repeatedly cited the DPRK’s deployment of thousands of skilled IT workers and its role in major digital-asset thefts as a national-security threat, vowing to use sanctions and other tools to disrupt the networks that enable the regime’s cyber-enabled financing.