How Crypto Is Fighting Back Against North Korea | The Breakdown

North Korea has had IT workers embedded in DeFi protocols since DeFi Summer — and they’re pretty good devs.

Nick Bax, blockchain investigator and SEAL 911 incident responder, joins us to break down how crypto crime has evolved from SIM swaps to nation-state social engineering.

We unpack the Monero inflation bug, Arbitrum’s 9/12 multisig gold standard, how DPRK workers now use facilitators to rent real identities, and what it actually takes to break into onchain investigation. Enjoy!

TIMESTAMPS:

(00:00) Introduction

(02:01) DeFi is Under Attack

(03:11) Contagion Onchain

(04:40) Nexo Ad

(05:16) Nick Bax Interview

(06:40) Incident Response Triage

(08:43) Preemptive Due Diligence

(10:20) From SIM Swaps To Remote Access

(13:45) Multisig Best Practices

(14:37) AI Speeds Up Attacks

(15:36) Nexo Ad

(17:14) Decentralization Tradeoffs

(19:17) Monero Bug Hard Fork

(20:05) Trusting Multisig Guardians

(21:05) Two Of Five Risks

(22:00) DeFi Decentralization Debate

(23:41) Proactive Threat Hunting

(25:25) DPRK Worker Red Flags

(27:32) Security Teams And Intel

(30:21) Thorchain And Laundering

(33:26) Whack A Mole Reality

(35:31) Becoming Onchain Investigator

(37:06) Closing Thoughts

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DISCLAIMER

As always, remember this podcast is for informational purposes only, and any views expressed by anyone on the show are solely their opinions, not financial advice.