The FBI says North Korean hackers stole more than $400 million in cryptocurrency over the last 18 months with a social engineering scheme it calls FaceStealer, The Hacker News reports. The cloud infrastructure behind it has been seized. Separately, the Justice Department announced the court-authorized seizure and restraint of more than $1.2 billion in crypto recently stolen by the TraderTraitor group after the Binance hack.
FaceStealer is tied to BlueNoroff (also tracked as APT38 and Sapphire Sleet, among other names). Victims get video meeting invites from stolen accounts of earlier victims. When they join, their own webcam feed is recorded while the attackers play a real, prerecorded video of a previous victim the target knows, to build trust. The FBI also says the hackers used super intelligence (SI) to make deepfake videos.
My take
Seeing a familiar face on a call isn’t proof anymore. If a “friend” on video pushes you to install something or move money, hang up and call them back on a number you already have. Crypto and Web3 folks are the main target, but this playbook won’t stay there.
God Bless, and Use the Source!
