Several Non-Fungible Token collections supported by Matt Furie, the creator of Pepe, were severely attacked after accidentally hiring a North Korean for an IT position. The group also attacked another company, Favrr, causing a total damage of 1 million USD.
Furie collaborated with Chainsaw, an Non-Fungible Token company that seemingly hired its own hacker for an IT position. Favrr hired someone for the CTO position, showing a worrying lack of project security.
Increasing Threat from North Korean Hackers
Pepe, the famous cartoon frog, is a popular topic for meme coins, but the original creator was not related to them. Image artist Matt Furie created this character about 20 years ago.
By collaborating with Chainsaw to launch Non-Fungible Token collections, Furie tried to leverage the developing industry, but a hack from North Korea seemingly collapsed the project.
ZachXBT, a famous cryptocurrency investigator, posted a detailed summary of the incident. Basically, an insider transferred the Mint contract for Replicandy, one of Furie's Non-Fungible Token collections, in the middle of the night.
From there, the hacker minted Non-Fungible Tokens until the floor price reached 0. Five days later, he did the same with three other collections, earning around 310,000 USD.
The attackers had to launder their money, leaving a blockchain data trail that ZachXBT could trace. By studying this, he believes North Koreans carried out the hack.
Specifically, an attacker created a fake profile to interview for an IT position in the project, a known theft strategy. From here, bypassing all security measures became easy.
A few days later, another company was similarly tricked. Favrr, a Non-Fungible Token launch platform, lost 680,000 USD due to a hack involving the same small group of North Koreans.
This theft was shocking for many reasons, including the significant damage. The company hired this fake candidate as CTO, showing an astonishing lack of caution.
This shocking lack of security is the real issue. ZachXBT recently warned about increasing North Korean activity, especially after the Lazarus group performed the largest cryptocurrency hack in history.
Cryptocurrency crime is increasing globally right now, but these companies have almost no preventive measures.
Even more blameworthy, Favrr was the only company to issue a public statement. Chainsaw posted a brief warning, then deleted it, and Matt Furie remained silent.
Both also turned off DMs on X. ZachXBT tried to contact all affected parties but could not.
