A North Korean agent applied for a job at a popular crypto firm: They tripped him up with a simple question about Halloween

The hiring team at Kraken, a U.S-based crypto exchange, noticed immediately that something was off about “Steven Smith,” a would-be IT worker who applied for a software engineering job in early October. But it wasn’t until they compared Smith’s email to a list of those suspected to be part of a hacker group that their suspicions were confirmed: Smith was a North Korean operative. 

Kraken could have just tossed the application. Instead, Kraken’s chief security officer, Nick Percoco, decided to take a closer look at Steven Smith.