In recent years, incidents of cryptocurrency theft and corporate secret data breaches frequently occur in the United States. Often, they involve residents of the DPRK who pose as employees from other countries. FBI agents have learned to identify hackers from the DPRK by one characteristic – a love for minions and the cartoon “Despicable Me.”

ФБР вычисляет северокорейских хакеров по мемам с миньонами #2

According to The Wall Street Journal, thousands of foreign hackers posing as U.S. residents get hired by American companies to steal money, crypto and secret data. Initially, the FBI thought that most of them were agents of the Russian GRU intelligence, because the spies often took the nickname Gru, but it turned out that Gru is just Gru from “Despicable Me”, and the hackers are North Korean. The hypothesis was confirmed by the fact that many such fake employees set minion avatars. In addition, they often used work laptops to read stories and facts about “Despicable Me” and discuss the cartoon among themselves, and in forged documents they chose minion names (Kevin, Stuart, Bob).

It is reported that now the FBI recommends companies to ask candidates in interviews whether they like minions.

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FBI identifies North Korean hackers by minion memes