October 23, 2023
The Justice Department has revealed that thousands of North Korean IT workers have been secretly sending millions of dollars of their earnings to North Korea to support its ballistic missile program.
The department discovered that the IT workers, who were sent by North Korea to work remotely with American companies, have been using fake identities to get jobs. The money they made was used to develop weapons in North Korea.
The FBI and other government agencies have taken $1.5 million and 17 domain names as part of their investigation into the scheme. Jay Greenberg, the head of the FBI office in St. Louis, warned that companies that hire freelance IT workers have “more than likely” accidentally taken part in the operation.
The FBI has told companies to be more careful when hiring remote IT workers, and has even suggested that they require video interviews to verify identities. John Hultquist, the head of threat intelligence at the cybersecurity company Mandiant, said that the COVID-19 pandemic has made it easier for North Korea to use IT freelancers to fund its weapons program.
Court documents allege that North Korea deployed thousands of skilled IT workers to China and Russia, deceiving businesses in the U.S. and beyond into hiring them as freelance remote employees. This deceit resulted in the generation of millions of dollars annually to support North Korea’s weapons programs.
The sources for this piece include an article in Yahoo.
