How do they use the $$? I guess it's not easy to convert to USD so the only option is on black market? Some vendors say chip vendors or weapon vendors may be willing to take crypto?
North Korean hackers stole a record $1.7B of crypto last year
91–100 of 203 posts
Re: North Korean hackers stole a record $1.7B of crypto last year
#92Earlier quoted context omitted.
If 99% of BTC mixers' volume is helping laundering international drug trade money, arms or human trafficking, it's not exactly hard to demonize mixing itself. I have no data to base this on, but I assume that privacy absolutists are a tiny, tiny drop in the pool of blood and crime.
do you feel the same way about Tor? If 99% of Tor's volume is helping laundering international drug trade money, distributing CSAM, etc, should it be demonized as well?
Intentional consealment of illegal internet traffic isn't a crime (the crime is just the crime).
Intentional consealment of illegal financial transactions is a crime in-and-of itself (the crime is money laundering, which is a seperate offence to the original criminal activity that the money came from).
Re: North Korean hackers stole a record $1.7B of crypto last year
#93You know, it's possible they wouldn't have to resort to such things if we weren't intent on sanctioning them to death.
Re: North Korean hackers stole a record $1.7B of crypto last year
#94As a blockchain security guy, it's really easy to spot the occasional North Korean heists on Ethereum. The big tells are: 1. They hack computers not code. Their normal plan is to steal keys by compromising users and computers. This is in contrast to the normal "hack" that works by finding and exploiting bugs in code. 2. They immediately exfiltrate the stolen money back to the real world via bazillions of mule account…
> Their normal plan is to steal keys by compromising users and computers. This is in contrast to the normal "hack" that works by finding and exploiting bugs in code. That's the primary way hacks are conducted by most hackers. Hackers are primarily social engineers, not technical. Technical hackers are extremely rare regardless of nationality.
The NSA called, they want their 0-day exploits back.
Re: North Korean hackers stole a record $1.7B of crypto last year
#95As a blockchain security guy, it's really easy to spot the occasional North Korean heists on Ethereum. The big tells are: 1. They hack computers not code. Their normal plan is to steal keys by compromising users and computers. This is in contrast to the normal "hack" that works by finding and exploiting bugs in code. 2. They immediately exfiltrate the stolen money back to the real world via bazillions of mule account…
Every once in a while I'll get a pleasantly worded email from a random address asking if I want to do 'low effort remote accounting services' to the tune of $3.5k a month.
I'm almost convinced that this is how they recruit those mule burners, since signing up for employment requires a lot of personal information that can be leveraged into opening bank accounts or other financial vehicles in that person's name.
Re: North Korean hackers stole a record $1.7B of crypto last year
#96You know, it's possible they wouldn't have to resort to such things if we weren't intent on sanctioning them to death.
What makes you think they'd behave any differently?
Re: North Korean hackers stole a record $1.7B of crypto last year
#97"mixers—large digital pools where crypto owners can deposit funds to obscure their origins." I have a quibble with articles about cryptocurrency fraud. They always get around to mixers and then they define it as if it were some relatively legitimate thing, like an odd bank. "large digital pools", "deposit funds". You have to get to the last phrase ("obscure their origins") to understand what mixers really are. A prop…
I don't understand why technology that provides a modicum of privacy must be demonized. It must be for money laundering and criminals. It can't have a legitimate use case. Is it used for nefarious activities? Of course, but not exclusively so.
GNU Taler[0] provides a "modicum of privacy" and isn't demonized.
Re: North Korean hackers stole a record $1.7B of crypto last year
#98Earlier quoted context omitted.
do you feel the same way about Tor? If 99% of Tor's volume is helping laundering international drug trade money, distributing CSAM, etc, should it be demonized as well?
Intentional consealment of illegal internet traffic isn't a crime (the crime is just the crime). Intentional consealment of illegal financial transactions is a crime in-and-of itself (the crime is money laundering, which is a seperate offence to the original criminal activity that the money came from).
The point was whether using a mixer is a crime in itself.
Re: North Korean hackers stole a record $1.7B of crypto last year
#99I'm wondering how much money trafficking and theft happens in the traditional finance world. It's great that we can analyze so much of what's happening in cryptocurrencies as most are open for the world to see.
Like Binance audits? =D
Re: North Korean hackers stole a record $1.7B of crypto last year
#100Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Not bad for a supposedly backwards repressed regime What do you mean by supposedly? > It also exposes a wider problem the crypto community are not addressing. What wider problem? That money (in any form) can be stolen by a malevolent state?
> What do you mean by supposedly? The DPRK is often portrayed as incompetent, helpless state purely able to eke out an existence by the grace of China (to whom it is useful only as a sort of attack dog cum buffer state). So the fact that they've managed to run an operation that can steal this much crypto may come as a surprise to many. I don't imagine their intelligence agencies are quite on the same level of electro…
It's not really surprising. NK is able to outsource their education to Chinese universities, and with a division that can yield $1.7B in revenue, it's not surprising they invest in this skillset, even if the country at large is destitute and backwards.