North Korean Hacker Interviewed for Job at Ethereum Privacy Layer

Quick take:

• Jonathan Wu, the Aztec Network's growth head, may have conducted a job interview with a North Korean hacker.
• Hackers are now attempting to work for crypto firms as employees.

According to the US Federal Bureau of Investigations, North Korean hackers are known for stealing billions of dollars from the cryptocurrency business, notably in DeFi (FBI).

According to the FBI, a North Korean-backed cyber gang called Lazarus stole $620 million via Axie Infinity's Ronin Network bridge.

Jonathan Wu shared information about a video job interview he had with 'Bobby Sierra,' a Solidity programmer allegedly from Hong Kong, on Twitter. Sierra was located through the Greenhouse employment portal, where he claimed to have "6+ years of rich experience."

Hackers trying to masquerade as employees

The person, who is thought to be from North Korea, was unable to articulate his competence or clarify past projects on which he claimed to have worked. Sierra, for example, neglected to clarify his apparent involvement with F2Pool, one of the world's largest Bitcoin and Ethereum mining pools.

When asked about his experience, Sierra referenced  BoredBunnies and MetaverseDAO, two "totally random" DAO and NFT enterprises. 

Sierra also only had 12 GitHub commits in the preceding year, which, for a blockchain engineer, is a worryingly low number. Wu reports that throughout the entirety of the interview, the applicant's camera was turned off. 

Not exactly unusual. However, Sierra’s answers were “drowned out by loud noises of individuals speaking a mix of Korean and English.” Sierra also lied about his location, claiming to be an engineer located in Ontario, Canada, on his cover letter.

The recurrent use of "okay" as a pause filler — a norm among ethnic Koreans according to Wu— poor English and a suspect accent were all warning flags. 

To top it off, Sierra dropped what is sure to become an infamous line, "the world will see the magnificent outcome from my hands," in his cover letter.

This is yet another development in hacker habits and how they’re trying to circumvent security. Granted, this wasn’t the most sophisticated approach, but the fact they’re trying to establish themselves as employees in crypto firms is worrying.  

This year alone, hackers have stolen over $1.22 billion from the decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystem.