U.S. DOJ Seizes FaceStealer Cloud Infrastructure Linked to $400 Million Crypto Theft

深潮 TechFlow, Nov. 13 — According to Cryptopolitan, the U.S. Department of Justice said the FBI estimated that the FaceStealer scam led by North Korean hackers had stolen over $400 million in crypto assets within 18 months and had dismantled the scam's cloud infrastructure; under a federal warrant, the FBI seized more than 900 webcam videos of victims. The DOJ said the group used stolen accounts of previous victims to invite new targets to video calls, played pre-recorded webcam clips of the targets' acquaintances, used deepfake videos to impersonate influential figures in the crypto and Web3 sectors, and then used fake audio glitches to lure targets into clicking links to install malware, thereby stealing crypto assets or exploiting the targets' access to other systems.

The DOJ linked the scam to North Korea-related groups including Sapphire Sleet, UNC1069, APT38 and BlueNoroff. The DOJ also obtained court approval to seize or restrict more than $1.2 billion stolen from Binance, and said it had frozen more than $2.7 billion in total; it attributed more than $6 billion in outflows from the exchange around October 29 to North Korean military hackers it calls TraderTraitor. North Korea has denied involvement.

Source: 深潮 TechFlow