In the past few days, at least three crypto founders have said they reported stopping an attempted crypto scam by alleged North Korean hackers from using fake Zoom calls to steal sensitive data.
Nick Bax, a member of the Security Alliance, a group of “white hat” hackers, wrote on March 11 that North Korean scammers had stolen millions of dollars from unsuspecting victims.
According to Bax, the scammers usually call their targets and offer a meeting or a partnership for crypto scam. But once the call starts, they send a message saying there are problems with the sound while a stock video of a bored venture capitalist plays on the screen. They then send a link to a new call.
“It’s a fake link that tells the target to fix their audio and video by installing a patch,” Bax said.
“They play on people’s fears, making you less careful than usual because you think you’re meeting with important VCs and rush to fix the sound.” Once you apply the patch, you’re screwed.
How The Scam Works And Why It Is Dangerous
The post inspired several crypto founders to go into more detail about their encounters with the scam.
Co-founder of the blockchain gaming Mon Protocol, Giulio Xiloyannis, claimed scammers tried to fool him and the head of marketing with a meeting on a partnership opportunity.
At the last minute, though, he was asked to use a Zoom link that “pretends to not be able to read your audio to make you install malware.” These events made him realize what was going on.
It was clear something was wrong when he saw a Gumicryptos partner talking and a Superstate partner talking at the same time, he said.
Crypto Leaders Share Their Close Calls With Hackers
David Zhang, a co-founder of the stablecoin Stably backed by US venture capital, was also a target. He said the con artists used his Google Meet link but then made up an internal meeting as an excuse and asked him to join that meeting instead.
“The site worked like a regular Zoom call.” “But I took the call on my tablet, so I don’t know how it would have gone on a desktop,” Zhang said.
“It probably tried to find out what OS the user was using before telling them what to do, but it wasn’t made for mobile OSes.”
The scam also hit Melbin Thomas, founder of Devdock AI, a decentralized AI platform for Web3 projects. He didn’t know if his tech was still at risk.
The same thing happened to me. “But I didn’t give my password while the setup was going on,” he said. “I disconnected my laptop and reset the factory settings.”
I disconnected my laptop and reset the factory settings. However, I transferred my documents to an external hard drive. hard drive. I have not attached the internal drive back to my laptop. Is it still under infection?”
On January 14, the US, Japan, and South Korea issued a joint warning about North Korean-linked cryptocurrency hackers.
Many believe that some of the largest cyberattacks in Web3—such as the $1.4 billion Bybit hack and the $600 million Ronin network hack—are the work of the Lazarus Group.
After a series of high-profile hacks, the Lazarus Group has been moving crypto assets using mixers, according to blockchain security firm CertiK.
After several big hacks, the Lazarus Group started moving crypto assets using mixers. Blockchain security firm CertiK found a deposit of 400 Ether, worth about $750,000, sent to the Tornado Cash mixing service.
