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.