From Engadget · Mariella Moon · · 1m 20s
North Korea stole $6.3 billion from Binance in fake job interview scam
Attackers posed as recruiters to trick Binance engineers into downloading malware, leading to the cryptocurrency exchange's largest security breach.
In brief
Attackers posed as recruiters to trick Binance engineers into downloading malware, leading to the cryptocurrency exchange's largest security breach. North Korea orchestrated a six point three four billion dollar theft from Binance by using fake job interviews to infect engineers' computers with malware over a…
Six billion dollar theft from Binance
Binance revealed that North Korea was behind a cyber attack resulting in six point three four billion dollars in stolen digital assets on October twenty-ninth.
Attackers posed as job recruiters
In September, a Binance software engineer received a message from a fake Project Director through a job-hunting platform. He completed two interview rounds, downloading malware-infected files during the process.
Malware used sophisticated evasion
The malware employed sophisticated obfuscation and evasion techniques, replacing authentic development tool components with malicious versions and concealing its activities as it went along.
“employed sophisticated obfuscation and evasion techniques”
Attack unfolded over four months
In June, attackers compromised a Wallet DevOps engineer through a tampered AI coding tool. In September they infected a software engineer. On October twenty-ninth they triggered the attack using stolen credentials.
Binance absorbs losses and rebuilds
Of six point three four billion dollars stolen, two point eight five billion had been frozen. Binance said it will absorb the losses and has replenished ninety-eight percent of affected token assets.
Here's the gist
North Korea orchestrated a six point three four billion dollar theft from Binance by using fake job interviews to infect engineers' computers with malware over a four-month campaign.
