00:00I almost got hacked by North Korea and I had to run across New York City to save my computer.
00:04In mid-March, I got a message over a telegram and there was this longtime source of mine and he's
00:10like, hey, do you want to meet this guy named Adam Swick? He's this former executive at a
00:15Bitcoin miner. And I said, yeah, sure. Why not? On the day of our meeting, I can't find the link
00:20in the calendar invite. So I asked him to send it to me. He sends it to me. It immediately
00:25opens up
00:26something that looks like Zoom. And in retrospect, was definitely not Zoom. And I was like, this seems
00:31a bit off. The app told me that the audio wasn't working and it wanted me to download something to
00:36fix it. Stupidly, I clicked download. I immediately realized that something was off. So I exited out
00:42of the Zoom meeting and it was around then when Jimmy from IT messaged me on Slack. When I was
00:48working on Friday, I did not expect to receive a high alert email coming from Ben's computer.
00:52As I was looking through it, I saw that there was a potential vulnerability and I reached
00:56out to Ben right away. When Jimmy reached out to me, I had in the back of my mind that
01:00I was already being phished and being targeted. So I slammed my laptop, ran out of my apartment,
01:05jumped on the subway and ran to Fortune's office basically ASAP to see Jimmy. I messaged Taylor
01:10Monahan. She is this longtime crypto security researcher and she's also a member of this volunteer
01:16group of crypto security people called Seal 911. She basically immediately messaged me back and was
01:23like, that's North Korea. And I later confirmed with two other security researchers that both the
01:28script and the link were definitely linked to North Korea. Luckily, I didn't run the script and I got
01:33to Jimmy super quickly. So none of my passwords, accounts, etc. were compromised. I saw firsthand how
01:39North Korea preys upon your sense of safety when you're talking with people you think you know.
01:44So I guess the takeaway, especially if you're in crypto, is just to be like extra careful and make
01:48sure that when you're talking with someone, especially through a messaging app, that you're
01:52actually talking with that person. Jimmy, thanks for saving me from North Korea. No problem. Anytime.
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