Diplomats from South Korea, the United States and Japan discussed trilateral cooperation to counter North Korea's evolving cyber threats during their working group talks in Washington on Friday, Seoul's foreign ministry said.

Lee Jun-il, director general for North Korean nuclear affairs at the ministry, and US and Japanese representatives, Lyn Debevoise and Naoki Kumagai, respectively, led the second session of the trilateral working group tasked with responding to the North's threats from the cyber domain.

The working group was launched in December as a follow-up to a cooperation agreement that President Yoon Suk Yeol, US President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida reached during their landmark summit at Camp David in August.

The three sides shared concerns that North Korean information technology workers are obtaining employment under disguised identities from IT companies abroad, generating revenue to help fund the North's nuclear and missile programs, and engaging in malicious cyber activities, according to the ministry.

To prevent the North's cyber threats, they discussed various ways to strengthen cooperation, including enhancing collaboration with private companies, engaging countries where North Korean IT workers operate, and bolstering international cybersecurity capacity, the ministry said.

While in Washington, Lee met with US officials, scholars and experts for discussions on relations between Pyongyang and Moscow, efforts to cut North Korea's illicit sources of revenue and other related issues. (Yonhap)