Crypto Exchange Kraken's latest security disclosure is less like a company blog post than a modern cyber warfare. Published On May 1, 2025, under the blunt title “How did we identify the North -Korea Hacker trying to get a job in Kraken,” describes the account in the details of how the apparently routine recruitment process was morphocated into what the exchange publicly calls “intelligence collection surgery”.
From the first contact, something seemed wrong. The recruiters noticed that the applicant “joined the names in their CV, and quickly changed it,” the detail, which the security team later described as an opening notice for the Symphony of the Red Flag. A few moments later, Tembre took an interview: “The candidate changed time by time between votes, pointing out that they were instructed in real time through the interview.”
Kraken streets the north -korea crypto hacker
Kraken's staff did not expect to be intuition alone. The post explains that industrial partners had already distributed a list of e -mail addresses related to the hacker group and one of these addresses responded to that summary. The red team of the armed Kraken armed with this match launched a diving, which revealed what it calls a “larger network of fake identities and pseudonyms,” which spreads in the crypto employment market. According to the blog, several companies had unintentionally hired individuals from the same summary and “one identity on this network was a well -known foreign representative on the list of sanctions.”
The technical contradictions began to accumulate. Exchange recalls how the applicant relied on MAC, which is based on VPN, on remote controls, but interacted with other components preferred by operators who have to wash location data. The researchers linked the summary to the Github profile, which contained the e -mail address that had been exposed to the violation of earlier data, and finally concluded that the main government ID “seemed to have changed using the details stolen by the identity theft.
As the evidence was collected, Kraken chose the wrong pointing rather than the rejection. The company promoted the applicant through sequential stages – feeding the hook. “Instead of tilting the applicant, our security and recruitment teams strategically forwarded them through our strict recruitment process – not to hire, but to investigate their approach,” he says on the blog.
Denouement came into what should have been an informal “chemical interview” security guard with Nick Perco. The applicant did not realize that everyone to think was stuck with the test. Percoco and his colleagues asked for real-time two-factor confirmations: show your government ID on the camera, report your physical location, name some local restaurants. “At the moment,” the post, “the candidate opened and struck the guard, they fought with basic test tests and did not convincingly answer real -time questions about their living city or citizenship state.”
Percoco then distilled the lesson of the lesson: “Do not trust, check. This cryptocurrency principle is more appropriate in the digital age than ever. State-supported attacks are not only crypto or US corporate questions-needs are a global danger. Any individual or business handling value.
The blog emphasizes that the crypto -sector attack surface is no longer limited to the coding codes of the repository or the heat infrastructure; It extends to the Mr. “Not all the attackers are out, some try to walk from the front door,” Kraken writes, adding that “Generative AI makes cheating easier, but not foolproof … Genuine candidates usually go through real -time, prohibited control tests.” All in all, reflecting the culture of the organization states that “the culture of productive paranoia is key. Security is not only IT responsibility. In modern era, it is an organizational thinking.”
Kraken will close his narrative with a reminder that the candidate was part of the North Korean campaign, which, according to third parties quoted in the post, estimated more than $ 650 million from crypto companies in 2024. The message is sober and uncomfortable: “Sometimes there are the biggest threats that are opportunities.”
During the press, BTC traded for $ 96,825.
A highlighted image created with Dall.E, graph from site TradingView.com
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