Hackers pulled off a $620 million crypto heist by tricking an engineer into applying for a fake job and opening an offer letter containing spyware, report says

Scammers used an elaborate fake job scheme to steal over $600 million in crypto from the online NFT-based game Axie Infinity, The Block reported Wednesday.

The hackers, who the US Treasury linked to North Korea's notorious Lazarus Group, posed as job recruiters on Linkedin and tricked a senior engineer at the game's developer, Sky Mavis, into going through "multiple rounds of interviews" for a position that did not exist, sources told the outlet.

They then sent the engineer a fabricated offer letter with "an extremely generous compensation package" that was laced with spyware, The Block reported.

Once downloaded, the hackers could access Axie Infinity's blockchain network known as "Ronin," where users transferred Ethereum-based digital currencies in and out of the game.

The security breach, which the company first disclosed back in March, is believed to be one of the largest crypto heists in the world.