North Korea's 'fake interview' breached Binance... “Damage from similar methods exceeds 19 billion won”

An analysis showed that North Korea stole more than 19 billion won over a year and a half using a similar 'fake interview' method prior to hacking the virtual asset exchange Binance.

Chainalysis, a blockchain analysis company, announced on the 3rd (local time) that North Korean hackers appear to have advanced their fake interview techniques through dozens of attacks before attacking Binance.

On this day, Binance released an initial investigation report showing that North Korean hackers had been approaching its engineers for several months for hacking purposes and had even conducted a fake recruitment process.

Chainalysis explained that employment fraud using false job opportunities and fake interviews is a very common tactic used by North Korean hacking organizations.

According to on-chain analysis, the amount of damage caused by fake interviews and malware methods linked to North Korea over the past 18 months exceeded $14.3 million (approximately 19.2 billion won).

The targets ranged from personal virtual asset wallets to organizations, protocols, and decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs), and Chainalysis analyzed that the methods would have been elaborated through the initial attack.

Chainalysis explained that North Korea's employment fraud is not only carried out by luring victims through fake recruitment, but also by having North Korean workers directly lie about their identities and get jobs at companies.

They earn profits through salaries or infect corporate systems with malware.

In that context, Chainalysis estimates that Binance attacks may be the result of months to years of preparation and practice.

Tom Maclaus, senior analyst at Chainalysis, said, “We have confirmed dozens of cases of recruitment-related breaches,” and added, “(North Korea) has refined its methods so elaborately that this will result in the largest extortion case in history.”