US disrupts North Korea's $400 million crypto scam, FBI says
The US has seized servers linked to a North Korean scam that used fake video meetings and deepfakes to steal more than $400 million in crypto, and has moved to seize $1.2 billion that was taken from Binance. The United States Justice Department said Thursday it had seized cloud infrastructure used by North Korean hackers in a video-call scam that has stolen more than $400 million (€361 million) in cryptocurrency over 18 months. According to the Justice Department, hackers sent meeting invitations from accounts taken over from earlier victims.
Once a target joins, the hackers record their webcam video and play a prerecorded clip of a previous victim the target knows, so trusted contacts appear to be present. The FBI says hackers are also starting to use AI-generated deepfakes of well-known crypto figures. The hackers then stage a fake technical error and offer a link to "fix" it, which installs malware, the department said.
In some cases, they waited months, or over a year, before stealing funds.
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