A North Korean hacker, who applied for an engineering position at the Kraken cryptocurrency exchange, was caught in the act by the company. Despite being aware of the hacker’s malicious intentions from the beginning, the executives at Kraken decided to advance them through the recruitment process in order to gather intelligence on their tactics.
During the hiring process, red flags emerged when the hacker used a different name during a video call and his email address was linked to a network of fake identities. It was discovered that the hacker’s ID appeared to be altered and possibly contained details from victims of identity theft.
In the final interview, the hacker was asked to verify their location and recommend restaurants in the city they claimed to live in, which caused them to unravel. The company realized that the candidate was not a legitimate applicant but an imposter attempting to infiltrate their systems.
Research suggests that this is a growing problem, as North Korean IT workers are gaining employment at major companies in the US and Europe. The salaries generated from these jobs help fund the secretive state, and in some cases, the hackers even extort their employers by threatening to release commercially sensitive information.
Nick Percoco, the chief security officer at Kraken, warns that state-sponsored attacks pose a global threat. While technology like artificial intelligence can make it easier for hackers to deceive businesses, real-time verification tests can often catch fraudsters off guard.
Source: https://news.sky.com/story/north-korean-hacker-who-tried-to-get-a-job-at-us-tech-company-caught-red-handed-heres-how-13359599
