- According to U.S. officials, North Korea executed a complex scheme to deceive American businesses into hiring hundreds of highly qualified IT professionals, who ultimately remitted the money they made home to fund the nation’s weapons development.
- According to the FBI and the Justice Department, they took down 17 websites that were being used by IT professionals to “defraud U.S. and foreign businesses, evade sanctions, and fund the development of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea government’s weapons program.”
- The Justice Department claims that North Korea hired IT personnel who were deployed to live abroad in China and Russia, then used false identities to get hired by American businesses. The workers would deceive several businesses into thinking they were headquartered in the US so they could be employed as independent contractors who work remotely. They did this by employing tricks like charging Americans to access their Wi-Fi at home.
- “In order to covertly finance its ballistic missile development, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea has inundated the worldwide labor market with ill-intentioned information technology professionals. According to Special Agent in Charge Jay Greenberg of the FBI’s St. Louis Division, seizing these bogus domains “helps protect companies from unknowingly hiring these bad actors and potentially harming their business.”
- Some of the employees built the 17 sites that were taken down to impersonate authentic U.S.-based IT service providers, which helps them conceal their names and locations when they seek for U.S. positions. This long-running ruse brought in millions for North Korean organizations working on the country’s WMD program, namely the Ministry of Defense. The United Nations forbids these programs.
- The personnel would also collect information and maintain access to documents, according to the Justice Department, so they could later hack into networks.
Via:
usatoday
