Sam Kessler and Taylor Monahan explain how North Korea is getting its coders hired at crypto companies to steal funds for the regime’s nuclear program.

The crypto community is facing a new kind of threat—North Korean devs are infiltrating crypto companies to steal millions and funnel funds back to the regime in order to bypass sanctions.

In this episode, Sam Kessler, CoinDesk’s deputy managing editor for tech and protocols, and Taylor Monahan, security at MetaMask, explain how North Korea has embedded its operatives into the crypto space, the red flags companies should watch for, and what these hackers are doing once inside crypto firms.

Plus, they share their most interesting stories about how these hackers have gotten hired at crypto companies and the red flags the industry should know about.

Show highlights:

What Sam found in his investigation about North Koreans infiltrating the industry
How Taylor has found that this is a recurring issue
Why Sam and Taylor refer to these infiltrated workers as ‘IT’ workers
The most interesting stories that Sam and Taylor have discovered
The trends in the hiring process that lead to North Koreans being hired and also what the big red flags are
How “easy it is to de-anonymize” addresses and transactions in blockchains
What assets and networks these workers often use to get paid
How, after infiltrating a company, those projects get hacked
How to deal with a situation in which you’ve already hired North Koreans
How to protect a protocol from another type of North Korean hack: by hacking groups
Whether the industry is getting better at security

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Guests:

Sam Kessler, CoinDesk's deputy managing editor for tech and protocols
CoinDesk: How North Korea Infiltrated the Crypto Industry
Taylor Monahan, security at MetaMask
Previous appearances on Unchained:
The QuadrigaCX Case: Taylor Monahan on What We Know From the Blockchain
MyCrypto's Taylor Monahan on Why She's Not a Fan of ICOs

Links

Previous coverage of Unchained on North Korea:
Why North Korea Is Interested in Cryptocurrency
Yeonmi Park on Why Doing Business With North Korea Is Like Buying a Ticket to a Concentration Camp

Unchained Podcast is Produced by Laura Shin Media, LLC. Distributed by CoinDesk.

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UNCHAINED: How North Koreans Infiltrated the Crypto Industry to Fund the Regime

CoinDesk Podcast Network

UNCHAINED: How North Koreans Infiltrated the Crypto Industry to Fund the Regime