North Korea Aggressively Targeting Crypto Industry with Well-Disguised Social Engineering Attacks


The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (“DPRK” aka North Korea) is conducting highly tailored, difficult-to-detect social engineering campaigns against employees of decentralized finance (“DeFi”), cryptocurrency, and similar businesses to deploy malware and steal company cryptocurrency.

North Korean social engineering schemes are complex and elaborate, often compromising victims with sophisticated technical acumen. Given the scale and persistence of this malicious activity, even those well versed in cybersecurity practices can be vulnerable to North Korea’s determination to compromise networks connected to cryptocurrency assets. North Korean malicious cyber actors conducted research on a variety of targets connected to cryptocurrency exchange-traded funds (ETFs) over the last several months.

Read more…
Source: U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation Cyber Division


Sign up for our Newsletter


Related:

  • WastedLocker: technical analysis

    July 31, 2020

    The use of crypto-ransomware in targeted attacks has become an ordinary occurrence lately: new incidents are being reported every month, sometimes even more often. On July 23, Garmin, a major manufacturer of navigation equipment and smart devices, including smart watches and bracelets, experienced a massive service outage. As confirmed by an official statement later, the cause ...

  • US defense and aerospace sectors targeted in new wave of North Korean attacks

    July 30, 2020

    Tracked under the codename of “Operation North Star,” McAfee said these attacks have been linked to infrastructure and TTPs (Techniques, Tactics, and Procedures) previously associated with Hidden Cobra — an umbrella term the US government uses to describe all North Korean state-sponsored hacking groups. As for the attacks themselves, McAfee said they were run-of-the-mill spear-phishing emails ...

  • FBI warns of Netwalker ransomware targeting US government and organisations

    July 29, 2020

    The FBI has issued a security alert about Netwalker ransomware operators targeting U.S. and foreign government organizations, advising their victims not to pay the ransom and reporting incidents to their local FBI field offices. FBI’s flash alert also provides indicators of compromise associated with the Netwalker ransomware (also known as Mailto) and includes a list of ...

  • Billions of Devices Impacted by Secure Boot Bypass

    July 29, 2020

    Billions of Windows and Linux devices are vulnerable to cyberattacks stemming from a bug in the GRUB2 bootloader, researchers are warning. GRUB2 (which stands for the GRand Unified Bootloader version 2) is the default bootloader for the majority of computing systems. Its job is to manage part of the start-up process – it either presents a ...

  • Critical Bugs in Utilities VPNs Could Cause Physical Damage

    July 29, 2020

    Remote code-execution vulnerabilities in virtual private network (VPN) products could impact the physical functioning of critical infrastructure in the oil and gas, water and electric utilities space, according to researchers. Researchers at Claroty found that VPNs used to provide remote access to operational technology (OT) networks in industrial systems are vulnerable to an array of security ...

  • Foreseeing cyber vulnerabilities of nuclear facilities in South Asia

    July 29, 2020

    In this era of rapidly evolving technology, nuclear facilities are exposed to dynamic and evolving spectrum of cyber vulnerabilities. Cyber-attacks on nuclear facilities are a matter of concern and it’s not for the first time that a cyber-attack has been carried out. Such as attack on nuclear program of Iran to serve the purpose of ...