Ethereum Foundation-Funded Program Exposes 100 DPRK Workers in Web3

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The Ethereum Foundation funded a six-month project that has identified 100 North Korean IT workers operating under false identities inside Web3 organizations. The foundation disclosed the results on Thursday as part of a recap of its ETH Rangers program, launched in late 2024 to provide stipends for individuals conducting public goods security work within the ecosystem.

One stipend recipient used the funding to build the Ketman Project, an initiative focused on investigating fraudulent developers embedded in crypto, with a particular emphasis on operatives linked to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK). During the stipend period, the Ketman Project identified 100 DPRK IT workers active within Web3 organizations and alerted approximately 53 projects that may have unknowingly employed them.

The Ethereum Foundation said the work “directly addresses one of the most pressing operational security threats facing the Ethereum ecosystem today.” The foundation did not disclose the specific methods used to identify the operatives, but the Ketman Project’s website details the behavioral and technical patterns the team tracked.

Documented red flags include reusing avatars and profile metadata across multiple GitHub accounts, accidentally exposing unlinked email addresses during screen sharing, and displaying device language settings, such as Russian, that contradict a claimed nationality. These patterns formed the basis of the project’s investigative methodology.

Beyond profiling individual operatives, the Ketman Project developed an open-It also co-authored an industry-standard identification framework in partnership with the Security Alliance, a blockchain-focused nonprofit organization

North Korean operatives have been linked to billions of dollars in cryptocurrency theft, with state-affiliated groups such as the Lazarus Group among the most widely tracked actors in the sector. The Ketman Project’s findings target the infiltration layer of DPRK operations, which frequently precede or enable financial exploitation.

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