UNCHAINED: How North Koreans Infiltrated the Crypto Industry to Fund the Regime

Sam Kessler and Taylor Monahan explain how North Korea is getting its coders hired at crypto companies to steal funds for the regime’s nuclear program.

The crypto community is facing a new kind of threat—North Korean devs are infiltrating crypto companies to steal millions and funnel funds back to the regime in order to bypass sanctions. 

In this episode, Sam Kessler, CoinDesk’s deputy managing editor for tech and protocols, and Taylor Monahan, security at MetaMask, explain how North Korea has embedded its operatives into the crypto space, the red flags companies should watch for, and what these hackers are doing once inside crypto firms.

Plus, they share their most interesting stories about how these hackers have gotten hired at crypto companies and the red flags the industry should know about. 

Show highlights:

What Sam found in his investigation about North Koreans infiltrating the industryHow Taylor has found that this is a recurring issue Why Sam and Taylor refer to these infiltrated workers as ‘IT’ workersThe most interesting stories that Sam and Taylor have discoveredThe trends in the hiring process that lead to North Koreans being hired and also what the big red flags areHow “easy it is to de-anonymize” addresses and transactions in blockchainsWhat assets and networks these workers often use to get paidHow, after infiltrating a company, those projects get hackedHow to deal with a situation in which you’ve already hired North KoreansHow to protect a protocol from another type of North Korean hack: by hacking groups  Whether the industry is getting better at security

Visit our website for breaking news, analysis, op-eds, articles to learn about crypto, and much more: unchainedcrypto.com

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Guests:

Sam Kessler, CoinDesk's deputy managing editor for tech and protocolsCoinDesk: How North Korea Infiltrated the Crypto IndustryTaylor Monahan, security at MetaMaskPrevious appearances on Unchained:The QuadrigaCX Case: Taylor Monahan on What We Know From the BlockchainMyCrypto's Taylor Monahan on Why She's Not a Fan of ICOs

Links

Previous coverage of Unchained on North Korea:Why North Korea Is Interested in CryptocurrencyYeonmi Park on Why Doing Business With North Korea Is Like Buying a Ticket to a Concentration Camp

Unchained Podcast is Produced by Laura Shin Media, LLC. Distributed by CoinDesk.

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