North Korean Hackers Target Crypto Developers

[serjent05]

sometimes we are told the north korea lacks advance computers, they hacked 1 Billion Dollars.

I believe creating malware does not need an advanced computer; it needs advanced knowledge in cryptography and programming, and a team dedicated to the tasks.  We all know that programming language application does not require any super computers to run.  Even the lowest end of the current computer technology can run almost all programming applications.  Besides if the team of hackers from North Korea is supported by their government, I believe they are using these "advance computers" in their activities.

Can be simply referred to as the human factor.

Everybody can know that it's bad, yet one person may be ignorant and make the hack possible - you never know where the crack may emerge.

True that, sometimes human forgets due to some reasons like too trusting of people who works with him or too confident on his setup security. Developer often use virtual machines but sometimes they forgot stuff and directly use their own machine.

You might be right, but the thing is that sometimes we just have that one slipped and everything falls. There are some of blindly trust anyone and that is one mistake and this is a human factor that we really need to overcome. As for the North Korean Hackers, if I'm not mistaken, it was just the West that put the blame on this. We really don't know if such group really exists. There are also school of thoughts that the West might have created the Lazarus group out of thin air and blame everything on the North Koreans as far as hacking crypto and any services.

You might be right about these North Korean Hacker group stuff but there is also no evidence that it was made up by the west. Despite all the evidence pointing to North Korea, their government never admitted that these groups are from them.  Well who would confirm such criminal acts if it will put the country in a messy situation.

[GreatArkansas]

I keep seeing headlines about these hackers, but I haven’t dug deep into the stories or followed the details. Is there any verified info out there, like official claims or reports confirming that North Korean hackers are actually taking responsibility for these big hacks?

+1. I am also curious because even some government officials confirmed that it's the North Korean hacker group, especially the recent Bybit hacking incident.

The only thing that missing is the official claim from the suspected group, but maybe if it's really proven that they are the ones responsibl,e especially when you can track it on the blockchain like the wallet addresses communication, so maybe that's why they dont need to official claim it to public anymore.

[X-ray]

Everybody can know that it's bad, yet one person may be ignorant and make the hack possible - you never know where the crack may emerge.

Can't deny but agree with that, even if the exchange company tries to enforce strict rules about not recklessly doing things like this, some devs with the prospect of getting additional side income can be blinded by greed.

I guess there's no foolproof solution to this except adding more security measures.

At the end of the day the exchange themselves should know what's best to mitigate this.

[Cossyblack]

More like social engineering.

Anyway, if you're a crypto developers, I think you should realize that you should not install anything recklessly to any of your machine that can access important thing like server and so on.

If you keep installing these random things into your machine anyway, do you really fit to be a crypto developer where security is like the primary concern?

You might be right, but the thing is that sometimes we just have that one slipped and everything falls. There are some of blindly trust anyone and that is one mistake and this is a human factor that we really need to overcome. As for the North Korean Hackers, if I'm not mistaken, it was just the West that put the blame on this. We really don't know if such group really exists. There are also school of thoughts that the West might have created the Lazarus group out of thin air and blame everything on the North Koreans as far as hacking crypto and any services.

I think the west wouldn't just come up with a claim like this if this group doesn't exist.they must have brought  convincing proofs that Lazarus group clearly exists and the North Korean government haven't debunked such claims for once could be another important facts to hold. A common mistake can cause major damage, judging from what happens to Bybit,it was a little error and more than enough was lost ,although it is certain that human errors is unavoidable but that shouldn't means a developer should be reckless but need to be extra careful when installing/accepting random files,it could be another access to  your computers by hackers.

[Numeral]

These kinds of social engineering attacks are no longer a novelty. It would seem that developers are IT specialists with a lot of experience and such basic things as getting a malicious file from somewhere in the external environment, they should know and be always ready to identify such an attack and not to follow the attacker's lead. However, if hackers continue to do this everywhere, it means that the qualification of modern developers in the field of information security is extremely low, otherwise hackers would simply get nothing from this area.

In order to prevent malicious hackers from practicing this topic, it is necessary to raise the level of knowledge of developers in this area. It is banal to scan all files that come from a potential employer for malicious code.

[Agbe]

I keep seeing headlines about these hackers, but I haven’t dug deep into the stories or followed the details. Is there any verified info out there, like official claims or reports confirming that North Korean hackers are actually taking responsibility for these big hacks?

Hacking has become a global issue so limiting or calling out north Korea with out any prove will not be fair to the state of North Korea as far as am concerned the people you could be referring to can be from other countries so until you have enough prove that they are citizens of North Korea I will not pay much attention to it, because of recent North Korea is in the middle of a well calculated agenda by the west and the United States to paint it image black due diplomatic issues

[pushups44]

I keep seeing headlines about these hackers, but I haven’t dug deep into the stories or followed the details. Is there any verified info out there, like official claims or reports confirming that North Korean hackers are actually taking responsibility for these big hacks?

Hacking has become a global issue so limiting or calling out north Korea with out any prove will not be fair to the state of North Korea as far as am concerned the people you could be referring to can be from other countries so until you have enough prove that they are citizens of North Korea I will not pay much attention to it, because of recent North Korea is in the middle of a well calculated agenda by the west and the United States to paint it image black due diplomatic issues

What I find strange about this thread is not just the skepticism of North Korean involvement, but also the painting of North Korea as a victim of Western propaganda. Now, of course, all nations have their own agenda with their own media bias, but it's pretty well-established by both governments and security researchers (!!!) that the North Korean government is heavily involved in prominent hacks. Again, it's not just the media but also respected security researchers. It would be one thing if people here cited material indicating that North Korea is being painted unfairly, but it's simply claimed despite its extraordinary nature. I find this very weird to be honest.

[peter0425]

These kinds of social engineering attacks are no longer a novelty. It would seem that developers are IT specialists with a lot of experience and such basic things as getting a malicious file from somewhere in the external environment, they should know and be always ready to identify such an attack and not to follow the attacker's lead. However, if hackers continue to do this everywhere, it means that the qualification of modern developers in the field of information security is extremely low, otherwise hackers would simply get nothing from this area.

We do not know the real credibility of those in Linkedin. Maybe some of them are not even honest with their resume and really has no idea about how to develop crypto projects. The safest way is for all of us to be at least aware of how we can assess, identify and prevent malware. No matter what your profession is or specialty, it’s still good to be aware of what these hackers can do to you and be able to protect yourself from them.

[logfiles]

These days, I find it very hard to believe what the mainstream media from the US or the West says. History has it that they are so good at sowing the seed of propaganda against the nations they consider to be enemy states. Russia and China have also had "hackers" before. Now it's the North Korean "hackers" while in the Entire west, they are supposedly all clean and don't have any hackers according to the narrative. North Korean hackers, my ass!

[joniboini]

Again, it's not just the media but also respected security researchers. It would be one thing if people here cited material indicating that North Korea is being painted unfairly, but it's simply claimed despite its extraordinary nature. I find this very weird to be honest.

It's not that weird tbh. One reason is that most people don't know who these respected researchers are. Media quoted people here and there, but some of them are saying nonsense, like what happened in the trading space. So they're being skeptical whenever "experts" are involved because of that. Besides, both can be true. It can be a propaganda while at the same time, those hackers are responsible for some extraordinary cases.

I don't give a damn what their nationality is, which is why sometimes I wonder why not just call their group name whenever a headline like this pop up. If they're responsible for scams, then I hope we can put them in jail. If someone claims the government is backing them up, then it would need extraordinary evidence to make the majority believe it.

[Publictalk792]

It's not that weird tbh. One reason is that most people don't know who these respected researchers are. Media quoted people here and there, but some of them are saying nonsense, like what happened in the trading space. So they're being skeptical whenever "experts" are involved because of that. Besides, both can be true. It can be a propaganda while at the same time, those hackers are responsible for some extraordinary cases.

I don't give a damn what their nationality is, which is why sometimes I wonder why not just call their group name whenever a headline like this pop up. If they're responsible for scams, then I hope we can put them in jail. If someone claims the government is backing them up, then it would need extraordinary evidence to make the majority believe it.

You made some good points about people and hackers combination. It makes sense that people do not trust information when they do not know who real experts are and when some people quoted in news say silly things. Like we can see with trading people lost trust due to bad information.
It is also possible that some information we hear is just made up to influence us but at  same time these hackers may doing some serious things. It is complicated and there is not one simple answer.
It is interesting that you do not care where  hackers are from and would rather just know their group name. It seems more useful to focus on what they do and make them responsible for their actions no matter where they are from. It also makes sense that if anyone is saying that government is helping them so we need strong proof to believe it. At end it looks like most people want to know clear facts and who is really responsible.