South Korea’s customs agency charged three suspects over a more than $100 million crypto-linked remittance scheme using WeChat Pay and Alipay, per Yonhap. South Korean authorities have uncovered an underground remittance operation that moved roughly 150 billion won (about $100 million to $110 million) through digital assets, according to local media reports. The Korea Customs Service has referred three suspects for prosecution, including a Chinese man in his 30s, on charges of violating the Foreign Exchange Transaction Act, Yonhap News reported Monday. Over the past four years, the illicit operation has allegedly laundered more than $100 million collected through WeChat Pay and Alipay, which was converted into cryptocurrencies through overseas exchanges and transferred into South Korean wallets before being converted back to fiat currency. Read more
SlowMist’s Yu Xuan advised high-profile users to prune contacts, rotate passwords and act fast on alerts to reduce WeChat takeover risks. Update Dec. 10, 9:30 am UTC: This article has been updated to add comments from a Binance spokesperson. Newly appointed Binance co-CEO and co-founder Yi He said on X that her WeChat account was hijacked after an old mobile number was taken, highlighting how Web2 messaging platforms can be used to impersonate crypto executives. “WeChat was abandoned long ago, and the phone number was seized for use. It cannot be recovered at present,” she said in a translated X post. Read more
WeChat hackers use victims’ friends to steal crypto. South Korean exchange Korbit denies hack after 12-hour maintenance. Chinese social media influencers have been targeted in a wave of WeChat account hacks, with attackers suspected of exploiting the messaging platforms security feature meant to keep them out. Since April, multiple victims claim hackers gained access to their WeChat login credentials and then triggered the platforms friend verification system. This security feature, one of three login options on WeChat, allows a users contacts to receive verification requests on their behalf when logging into a new device. Its intended as a backup when SMS or QR code authentication is unavailable. Cos, co-founder of blockchain security firm SlowMist, broke down the method in a June 17 post on X. He noted that attackers appear to target contacts with whom victims had minimal interaction, increasing the chances those users might mindlessly approve the request and forward the code. Read more