The U.S. Department of Justice just announced that it has convicted five individuals, including four U.S. citizens and one Ukrainian national, for facilitating the illegal employment of North Korean IT workers at American companies. According to its press release, these people used their own identity or provided false or stolen identities to North Korean workers seeking employment with U.S.-based firms. They also hosted the company-provided laptops in locations across the United States. They used remote desktop software to give the illusion that the work was being done within its borders. All in all, the various schemes run by the subjects earned North Korea, formally known as the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea or DPRK, at least $3 million in revenue.
“These actions demonstrate the Department’s comprehensive approach to disrupting North Korean efforts to finance their weapons program on the back of Americans,” Assistant Attorney General for National Security John A. Eisenberg said in a statement. “The Department will use every available tool to protect our nation from this regime’s depredations.”
The North Korean regime has been using the direct labor of its people to make money for the state. But because Pyongyang faces heavy sanctions from various nations, including the U.S., its workers need false identities to gain employment, especially in the U.S. Despite many seeing the DPRK as a state where most citizens lack access to the latest technology, it actually has an elite group of hackers. In fact, the FBI identified it as the source of the biggest crypto hack in history, and it’s already using artificial intelligence to help its agents get remote freelance jobs. Despite doing the remote work, the North Korean workers do not get the bulk of their wages; instead, the state uses the proceeds to help fund its various weapons programs.
“FBI investigations continue to expose the North Korean government’s relentless campaign to evade U.S. sanctions and generate millions of dollars to fund its authoritarian regime and weapons programs,” FBI Counterintelligence Division Assistant Director Roman Rozhavsky said. “These guilty pleas send a clear message: No matter who or where you are, if you support North Korea’s efforts to victimize U.S. businesses and citizens, the FBI will find you and bring you to justice. We ask all our private sector partners to improve their security process for vetting remote workers and to remain vigilant regarding this emerging threat.”
Both companies and workers have benefited from remote work. Still, it also comes with challenges like these. While institutions rely on cursory document checks and monitoring the IP addresses of their laptops to determine their actual location, these can easily be circumvented by facilitators who are paid for their services. The people involved reportedly received somewhere in between $3,000 and $90,000 for lending their identities, hosting the issued devices, and even running a laptop farm for the North Koreans. One of the convicted felons even forfeited $1.4 million as part of their plea deal, which shows how lucrative this illegal activity can be.
Jowi Morales is a tech enthusiast with years of experience working in the industry. He’s been writing with several tech publications since 2021, where he’s been interested in tech hardware and consumer electronics.
