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Contagious Interview is a North Korean state-linked cyber operation that uses fraudulent recruitment to compromise software developers, IT professionals, and cryptocurrency, blockchain, and Web3 specialists worldwide. It is also tracked as WaterPlum, DeceptiveDevelopment, DEV#POPPER, PurpleBravo, Tenacious Pungsan, UNC5342, Void Dokkaebi, and Gwisin Gang. Its dominant objective is financial theft and revenue generation for North Korea. Japanese and U.S. authorities assess that WaterPlum operators report to the 313 General Bureau of the Munitions Industry Department, subordinate to the Workers’ Party of Korea Central Committee. Operators impersonate recruiters and legitimate employers through social networks, recruiting services, job boards, and freelance marketplaces. Victims are persuaded to execute malicious coding assignments, developer projects, npm packages, or commands presented as fixes for interview-software problems. Delivery techniques include ClickFix-style camera and microphone troubleshooting, malicious repositories, and Visual Studio Code tasks that execute when a project is trusted. Operators also use AI face-swapping during recruitment calls and conceal malicious code through obfuscation. UNC5342 activity uses public-blockchain smart contracts as resilient payload and command-and-control pointers. The operation deploys BeaverTail, InvisibleFerret, OtterCookie, OtterCandy, StoatWaffle, GolangGhost, and PylangGhost across Windows, macOS, and Linux. Its tooling provides remote access and steals browser credentials, session cookies, cryptocurrency-wallet material, identity documents, project files, clipboard contents, and keystrokes. Some variants establish persistence and manipulate browser-extension permissions. Stolen assets support cryptocurrency theft, identity impersonation, and data-theft extortion; compromised developers can also expose their employers’ systems and intellectual property. The campaign has operational and personnel overlap with North Korean fraudulent IT-worker networks associated with Famous Chollima. Some WaterPlum operators also perform fraudulent IT work, and shared infrastructure connects the activities, but the wider IT-worker ecosystem is not synonymous with Contagious Interview.
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Who, where, and (when attributed) which flag flies behind the operation. Pulled from open-source reporting and Mallory's analyst review.
Sectors the actor has been observed targeting.
Geographies tied to known operations.
Attributed origin per open-source reporting.
54 distinct techniques observed across reporting, grouped by tactic. Hover any cell for the evidence excerpt; click through for MITRE's full description.
18 malware families attributed to this actor across reporting.
13 additional families tracked in Mallory.
2 CVEs this actor has used in observed campaigns. 2 of them exploited in the wild.
"A critical remote code execution (RCE) vulnerability, identified as CVE-2025-55182 and dubbed React2Shell, exists within the React Server Components (RSC) architecture, allowing unauthenticated attackers to execute arbitrary code..."
This detection identifies instances where Windows Explorer.exe spawns PowerShell or cmd.exe processes, particularly focusing on executions initiated by LNK files. This behavior is associated with the ZDI-CAN-25373 Windows shortcut zero-day vulnerability, where specially crafted LNK files are used to trigger malicious code execution through cmd.exe or powershell.exe. This technique has been actively exploited by multiple APT groups in targeted attacks through both HTTP and SMB delivery methods.
894 indicators attributed to this actor: domains, IPs, hashes, and other artifacts pulled from reporting. View more in app.
20 sources tracked across advisories, community write-ups, and news. New activity surfaces here as Mallory finds it.
Conducts recruiter-themed social-engineering activity and is assessed to overlap with DPRK fraudulent IT-worker operations. The activity can compromise developer systems and obtain sessions, files, or cryptocurrency-wallet material; associated actors may also seek legitimate employment access and salary payments.
North Korean state-sponsored activity targeting cryptocurrency developers through fake-job campaigns. It uses blockchain dead drops and multi-chain smart-contract infrastructure to distribute credential-stealing malware and retrieve C2 instructions, enabling cryptocurrency theft.
A North Korean IT-worker fraud operation that uses fraudulent remote-job applications to infiltrate organizations, generate recurring revenue for the North Korean regime, and in some cases infect devices and exfiltrate cryptocurrency-wallet funds or credentials.
North Korean, state-directed group conducting the Contagious Interview campaign. It impersonates AI, cryptocurrency, and NFT companies to target developers and Web3/cryptocurrency professionals with fake technical interviews and coding tasks, delivering information-stealing malware and stealing cryptocurrency-wallet assets or credentials. It reportedly compromised over 7,000 cryptocurrency wallets or their access credentials and transferred approximately $10.71 million to Pyongyang.
Match sector + geo + tech-stack targeting against your real footprint.
Every observed MITRE ATT&CK technique, grouped by tactic.
Families this actor is known to deploy, with IOCs and behavior.
CVEs this actor has used in known campaigns.
YARA, Sigma, Snort, and vendor rules, auto-deployed to your SIEM.
Domains, IPs, and hashes tied to this actor, refreshed continuously.