👨🏾‍💻 Dev corner: the biggest exchange hack reportedly started with one laptop

Reports citing Binance's first findings on the Oct 29 theft (about 6.3B USD) point to a compromised DevOps engineer's laptop. Investigators linked the attack to North Korea's TraderTraitor group. No private key was reported leaked.

The lesson: attackers often don't break the cryptography. They break the people and devices around it.

How groups like this are known to operate:
🔹 A fake job offer, coding test or "partner" message delivers a file or package
🔹 Running it plants malware on a work machine
🔹 That access is used to reach internal systems or signing tools

What you can copy for your own setup:
🔹 Never run code or open files from strangers, even "take-home tests"
🔹 Keep your seed phrase offline. No real exchange or support agent will ever ask for it
🔹 Use an authenticator app or hardware key for 2FA, not SMS
🔹 Ignore "hack compensation" or "airdrop claim" links in DMs. Scammers love big news events
🔹 Use a separate device or browser profile just for crypto

Have you ever received a fake "job test" or compensation DM? 👇

📷 Photo: FlyD / Unsplash