North Korea, Iran Linked to Surge in Blockchain Malware Activity

State-linked hackers accounted for roughly two-thirds of new activity each quarter as the number of times attackers stored malware instructions or infrastructure information on public blockchains rose 420% over the past 12 months, according to a Chainalysis report. 

Chainalysis identified North Korea and Iran-linked operators among the state actors adopting the technique. In one of the report’s findings, the analytics firm connected previously unattributed activity spanning Tron, Aptos and BNB Smart Chain (BSC) to UNC5342, a North Korea-linked group tracked by Google Threat Intelligence. 

Encoded pointers in Tron and Aptos transactions directed infected devices to the same BSC transaction, with Tron serving as the first route and Aptos as a fallback, Chainalysis reported. The BSC transaction contained encrypted server addresses and configuration data that connected compromised devices to offchain infrastructure used for remote…