Crypto’s Biggest Heist Ever + The Spy Who Loved Nvidia + Hacktober’s Mysteries

North Korea stole $6 billion from Binance in about 20 minutes, according to the FBI, making it the biggest crypto heist ever. We break down the hack: how the attackers got in, why investigators think the laundering may have been automated, how Binance covered the losses, and whether AI played a role.

Then: how a suspected Chinese spy got close to Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang. New York Times reporter Ana Swanson, who helped break the story, joins us to discuss Alice Huang, the Megaspeed executive U.S. officials believe was a Chinese spy. We get into her ties to Jensen Huang, why the White House and President Trump were briefed and didn't act, and the loophole that lets Chinese companies rent banned Nvidia chips.

And finally: who took down AO3, the internet's biggest fanfic archive? And who hacked supermarket freezers across Europe and cranked them to 122°F?? Hacktober is over. Welcome to Breachvember.

Note: For more information on the Binance hack, you can check out the company’s latest update, which was released after we recorded this episode. It adds fascinating new details — like that the attack began months earlier and involved a phony job interview — but doesn’t change our analysis.

For a transcript of this episode, select the episode on npr.org/machinegods.

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