What do your last-minute Christmas online deliveries have to do with Kim Jong-Un’s repressive state?
Answer: North Korean workers are applying en mass to get jobs at Amazon, intending to funnel their wages ‘back to fund the regime’s weapons programs’.
Stephen Schmidt, the tech company’s Chief Security Officer, sounded the alarm this week, saying that since April last year, they had identified and blocked 1,800 suspected DPRK operatives from joining.
The problem is becoming more acute, with Mr Shmidt saying they have detected 27% more DPRK-affiliated applications quarter over quarter this year.
He said in a post on LinkedIn: ‘Over the past few years, North Korean (DPRK) nationals have been attempting to secure remote IT jobs with companies worldwide, particularly in the U.S.
‘Their objective is typically straightforward: get hired, get paid, and funnel wages back to fund the regime’s weapons programs.’
He added: ‘This isn’t Amazon-specific. This is likely happening at scale across the industry.’
The workers are increasingly targeting AI and machine learning roles, ‘likely because these are in higher demand as companies adopt AI.’
How are they doing this?
They are using more sophisticated tactics to get one over on Jeff Bezos, such as taking over the LinkedIn accounts of legitimate software engineers to give them credibility.
In some cases, they pay people to take over their real accounts so they can pose as them.
Some are working on ‘laptop farms’, where someone in the US, for example, agrees to host multiple computers which are given software to be controlled remotely, as in the picture above.
This can mean internet traffic appears to be coming from down the road, or simply a different US state, when in reality the devices are being controlled from across the world.
This summer, Christina Chapman, 50, was jailed for eight years for hosting ‘laptop farms’ in Arizona and Minnesota, which she used to help foreign workers pose as Americans to get jobs at over 300 companies.
She would log into the computers and then help the workers connect to them remotely, where they used stolen identities to carry out their roles. She also helped process their salaries.
The FBI warned that North Korea had earned ‘millions of dollars for its nuclear weapons program by victimizing American citizens, businesses, and financial institutions.
‘However, even an adversary as sophisticated as the North Korean government can’t succeed without the assistance of willing US citizens like Christina Chapman.’
US Attorney Jeanine Ferris Pirro said after the sentencing: ‘North Korea is not just a threat to the homeland from afar. It is an enemy within. It is perpetrating fraud on American citizens, American companies, and American banks. It is a threat to Main Street in every sense of the word.
‘The call is coming from inside the house. If this happened to these big banks, to these Fortune 500, brand name, quintessential American companies, it can or is happening at your company. Corporations failing to verify virtual employees pose a security risk for all. You are the first line of defense against the North Korean threat.’
How can the fake workers be found out?
Mr Schmidt said there are some giveaways.
‘We look for degrees from schools that don’t offer claimed majors, or dates misaligned with academic schedules,’ he said.
‘Small details give them away. For example, these applicants often format U.S. phone numbers with “+1” rather than “1.” Alone, this means nothing. Combined with other indicators, it paints a picture.’
He urged companies to look for patterns in applications they receive, which could imply they are not legitimate.
Regular ID verification is necessary, as well as monitoring for any unusual remote access or unauthorised hardware.
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