Radhika Parashar
- Zhao said North Korean hackers have become more advanced and creative
- He said threat actors from North Korea have slyly joined the crowd of legit job seekers
- In 2024, hackers linked to North Korea reportedly managed to steal over $1.3 billion in cryptocurrency
Binance founder Changpeng Zhao (CZ) has raised red flags against the rising number of North Korean hackers posing as job seekers in the crypto sector. In a detailed post on X, CZ said that securing a job in a crypto firm gives the hackers a foot in the door through positions like security, finance, and development.
Zhao, who has a follower-base of over 10 million on X, warned that North Korean hackers have become more advanced and creative in their tactics overtime.
“They pose as employers and try to interview/offer your employees. During the interview, they will be a problem with Zoom and they will send your employee a link to an “update”, which contains virus that will takeover your employee’s device. Or they will give your employee a coding question and later send some ‘sample code’,” he alerted.
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The crypto mogul was responding to a post from on-chain intelligence firm Security Alliance which had raised a similar alert. The platform said that while North Korean developers have shown a keen interest in contributing to the global Web3 fabric, distinguishing genuine talent from notorious cyber actors has been identified as a major challenge.
To simplify the screening process, Security Alliance said, it has created a portfolio to pick out genuine North Korean IT workers for Web3 firms ready to hire.
As per Zhao, threat actors from North Korea have slyly joined the crowd of legit job seekers to make inroads into the corporate Web3 ecosystem.
Citing the recent Coinbase breach that originated from India and may have costed the company as much as $400 million, Zhao reiterated that hackers could bribe employees working in crypto firms to extract sensitive information.
“The list goes on…to all crypto platforms, train your employees to not download files, and screen your candidates carefully,” CZ noted.
In 2024, hackers linked to North Korea managed to steal over $1.3 billion in cryptocurrency through hacks and scams, The Guardian had reported in February this year. Citing Chainalysis findings, the report had highlighted that North Korean hackers carried out at least 47 attacks last year. In 2023, these hackers had roped in $660 million.
