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 has seized cloud infrastructure used by North Korean hackers in a $400 million crypto scam, according to FBI officials. The FBI refers to the scam as "FaceStealer." The hackers send meeting invitations from compromised accounts and record victims' webcam videos to create a sense of trust. In some cases, they wait months or over a year before stealing funds.
Afterward, they use the victim's contacts to find new targets. The FBI seized over 900 webcam videos of victims under a federal warrant. The scam is reportedly linked to a hacking cluster known as Sapphire Sleet or UNC1069, separate from the North Korean military hackers blamed for the Binance theft. North Korea reportedly finances its rogue regime and weapons program through cryptocurrency theft.
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