According to Arthur Cheong, North Korean-linked hackers are believed to have drawn out the whole cryptocurrency sector and are looking for possible flaws in the system. Experts believe that state-sponsored cyberattacks from North Korea have infiltrated the cryptocurrency business and know what methods to deploy to steal consumers’ money.
Cheong Declares That North Korea Is Pursuing Cryptocurrency Companies
According to Arthur Cheong, North Korea is aggressively attempting to destroy the cryptocurrency business. On 15th April, the DeFiance Capital founder believed North Korea’s state-sponsored hacking company BlueNorOff is undertaking a coordinated effort against all the major cryptocurrency firms, based on his study and interactions with top cybersecurity specialists.
Cheong believes the gang has probably plotted out the whole cryptocurrency ecosystem and knows what sort of phishing emails will get past its protections, depending on the complexity of their social engineering tactics. It’s vital that our business understands that we’re being aggressively attacked by a state-sponsored cybercriminals group that’s extraordinarily smart and savvy, he stated. They may even alter their tactics and weapons in the future. People who work in the crypto market might have their email addresses hacked by North Korea, says Cheong, who later said that.
This past month, Cheong himself lost around $1.7 million worth of NFTs due to a social engineering attack. The attackers sent him a very sophisticated email that they used to get malware on his computer and get the cryptocurrency wallet’s seed phrase. Seed phrases in cryptocurrency give people who know them absolute authority over the cryptocurrency funds stashed in a certain wallet. Anyone who knows the phrase can do anything with the funds.
Cheong revealed to Crypto Briefing that he would have substantial proof that the North Korean government hacking organization BlueNorOff was responsible for the hack, which a cyber security company confirmed. He also claimed that an organization was linked to several other high-profile individuals, businesses, and procedures.
Last year, North Korea attempted to steal more than $400M worth of cryptos, according to a study from the blockchain forensics company Chainalysis. One of North Korea’s most important intelligence agencies is underneath two cryptocurrency trading cyberattacks that took $281M from KuCoin and $97M from the Liquid platform. Additionally, the United States Treasury acknowledged on 14th April that the Lazarus Group was also responsible for March’s $550M Ronin Network gateway attack. Cryptographic history has seen the 2nd biggest attack in the last few years.
Cheong warned notable companies and individuals in the cryptocurrency business to exercise additional caution in handling their cryptocurrencies amid 15th April’s Twitter storm, predicting that North Korea will intensify its cyberattacks on the market. Apart from traditional security precautions like enterprise-grade custodial options, multi-signature wallets, and hardware devoted solely to cryptocurrency operations, Cheong advised crypto companies to be cautious while employing new team members.
We’ve heard of this situation by one of our investment managers, where interviewees for a software engineer position appear strange and incapable of matching their résumé profile, he added, implying that North Korean attackers had attempted to enter legal cryptocurrency organizations.
North Korea is infamous for developing bogus organizations to build cryptocurrency software that misleads users into installing harmful applications that steal their cash, based on a January report issued by cybersecurity company Kaspersky. According to the same source, North Korea’s bread-and-butter is already attacking small to medium-sized cryptocurrency companies with intricate social engineering tactics.
