Former Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao, also known as CZ, has raised alarm about the increasing number of North Korea-linked hackers posing as IT workers. The renowned crypto mogul made the disclosure on Thursday via his official page on X.
In the statement, the former CEO disclosed how hackers from North Korea are now devising new means to infiltrate cryptocurrency exchanges. He narrated that the state-backed hackers now seek job opportunities at crypto exchanges giving them access to core security setups belonging to the firms.
Furthermore, the founder of the largest cryptocurrency exchange added that the bad actors are usually in search of jobs relating to development, security, and finance to carry out their deadly activities. As part of the strategies to gain insider access to crypto exchanges, these North Korean agents sometimes bribe employees to grant them access.
Also, CZ illustrated how they also offer job opportunities to employees of cryptocurrency exchanges. During the interview, there is usually a problem with Zoom, which the agents will then send a corrupted update, urging the targeted employee to install.
With the corrupted app, these bad actors will gain control of the employee’s device and extract details that they’ll use to orchestrate the assault. Zhao said some North Korea agents send malicious links to customer support with the aim of gaining access to the exchange’s database.
CZ went on to mention how the hackers go as far as outsourcing vendors for data access of renowned exchanges. However, the Binance founder warned all cryptocurrency platforms to train and sensitize their staff against downloading files and carefully screen candidates before employing them.
Crypto community on red alert
Meanwhile, Coinbase confirmed that in recent weeks it had detected some North Korea agents pretending to be tech experts seeking job opportunities from the exchange. Consequently, the CEO of the exchange, Brian Armstrong has introduced some new internal security measures such as mandatory in-person training in the US for all workers.
Additionally, the exchange demands that newly recruited workers for sensitive positions be US citizens and submit to fingerprinting. Also addressing the issue is a group of white hat hackers known as Security Alliance (SEAL) have profiled about 60 North Korea agents pretending to be tech experts seeking job opportunities with false names.
The group went on to release a repository that contains crucial details on the impersonators including their nicknames, addresses, emails, and many others. Lastly, the ethical hackers vowed to disclose more hackers, while vowing to keep the cryptocurrency space more safe.
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