US Government Takes Down Major North Korean 'Remote IT Workers' Operation (techcrunch.com) 46
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: The U.S. Department of Justice announced on Monday that it had taken several enforcement actions against North Korea's money-making operations, which rely on undercover remote IT workers inside American tech companies to raise funds for the regime's nuclear weapons program, as well as to steal data and cryptocurrency. As part of the DOJ's multi-state effort, the government announced the arrest and indictment of U.S. national Zhenxing "Danny" Wang, who allegedly ran a years-long fraud scheme from New Jersey to sneak remote North Korean IT workers inside U.S. tech companies. According to the indictment, the scheme generated more than $5 million in revenue for the North Korean regime. [...]
From 2021 until 2024, the co-conspirators allegedly impersonated more than 80 U.S. individuals to get remote jobs at more than 100 American companies, causing $3 million in damages due to legal fees, data breach remediation efforts, and more. The group is said to have run laptop farms inside the United States, which the North Korean IT workers could essentially use as proxies to hide their provenance, according to the DOJ. At times, they used hardware devices known as keyboard-video-mouse (KVM) switches, which allow one person to control multiple computers from a single keyboard and mouse. The group allegedly also ran shell companies inside the U.S. to make it seem like the North Korean IT workers were affiliated with legitimate local companies, and to receive money that would then be transferred abroad, the DOJ said.
The fraudulent scheme allegedly also involved the North Korean workers stealing sensitive data, such as source code, from the companies they were working for, such as from an unnamed California-based defense contractor "that develops artificial intelligence-powered equipment and technologies."
From 2021 until 2024, the co-conspirators allegedly impersonated more than 80 U.S. individuals to get remote jobs at more than 100 American companies, causing $3 million in damages due to legal fees, data breach remediation efforts, and more. The group is said to have run laptop farms inside the United States, which the North Korean IT workers could essentially use as proxies to hide their provenance, according to the DOJ. At times, they used hardware devices known as keyboard-video-mouse (KVM) switches, which allow one person to control multiple computers from a single keyboard and mouse. The group allegedly also ran shell companies inside the U.S. to make it seem like the North Korean IT workers were affiliated with legitimate local companies, and to receive money that would then be transferred abroad, the DOJ said.
The fraudulent scheme allegedly also involved the North Korean workers stealing sensitive data, such as source code, from the companies they were working for, such as from an unnamed California-based defense contractor "that develops artificial intelligence-powered equipment and technologies."
Here's a question (Score:2)
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What a stupid question. The answer is that isiolationist, they become even more dangerous. Yes, they censor and surveil, but even then it is better if they have Internet than not.
Re: Here's a question (Score:3)
Re:Here's a question (Score:4, Interesting)
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Who's "we"? You mean USA? What makes you think any country has the right to "allow" any other country to have internet?
C’mon. You’re not that naive. The internet isn’t some neutral, open commons—it’s contested terrain. Just because it’s made of fiber and protocol stacks instead of dirt and concrete doesn’t mean it’s exempt from geopolitical reality. If war is politics by other means, cyberspace is now one of those means.
Every nation reserves the right to deny adversaries access to strategic resources—and in a digital war, that includes bandwidth and routing. If the U.S.
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Why the fuck do we allow them to have an internet connection?
Who's "we", the USA? Or do you imagine that all nations which aren't China are on the same page when it comes to... anything?
Re: Here's a question (Score:5, Informative)
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We can't prevent it. They're next to China and Russia, either of whom would happily allow cables over the border just to annoy the West.
Not quite. A border and a cable don’t buy you the internet. The global net runs on routing trust — and trust can be revoked. If Tier 1 providers drop your routes, or upstreams filter your announcements, you're not “online.” You’re isolated. Yes, Russia or China could route North Korean traffic through their own autonomous systems and make it look like it's coming from within their borders. This is functionally how a lot of North Korean cyber ops already work — they laun
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Air gapping North Korea is an absolute data security solution. Unless you permit travel from North Korea, and that breaks the gap - people will transport the threats. Or these travelling agents recruit others to work on their behalf. Or an ally grants them clandestine access.
Aw, crap, there is no prevention. So we treat their threat like we would the cDc... annoying little snots they were. You have to lock your windows , bar the doors, and electrify the fences. And after all that, muzzle flash. And some wil
oh noes (Score:2)
Security clearance? (Score:4, Interesting)
Not just ND jobs (Score:3)
And we interviewed one of these.
A few little things made us think the application was weird. Then during the interview, they claimed to be from a smallish place in New Jersey. One of our people grew up close to there and asked some questions about local things. They had no idea and covered po
Re: Not just ND jobs (Score:2)
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The point is that SF86s only apply to a subset of the jobs these folks are applying for.
Therefor demanding clearances does not solve the problem unless you demand clearances for jobs that have absolutely nothing to do with natsec.
Which will never happen, because (a) it would be a ridiculously stupid waste of time, money and effort to screen people for risks that have nothing to do with the job to be done, (b) and even if folks
Re: Not just ND jobs (Score:2)
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How does this even work? (Score:3)
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Verified ID? You think the I9 system actually does anything? You know there are SSNs in the IRS system being used by multiple people and no one does anything about it? You think a nation-state, even a horrible little dump like NK can't get something notarized? And who checks if the notary stamp is valid, anyway? The world is not this smoothly oiled machine where everything happens as required and specified. The real world is sloppy dirty and every corner possible is cut at every opportunity.
As far as
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Mod up. The I-9 process is flawed. When the SSA finally obtains sufficient IT resources to do cursory grooming of the member database we can expect them to figure out where the abuses are, and at least dela with the obvious and copious. But our government seems to be incapable of managing its IT resources to even a marginally successful level, unless it's for the acquisition of revenue. And that's the lesson. They will damn sure make sure they get paid. Reducing fraud? Only for headlines. Even just hamperin
Re:How does this even work? (Score:5, Interesting)
I've been working remote for well over a decade. I've had jobs where there wasn't even a physical office. We just did a zoom and showed them our identification. Onboarding, orientation, training, etc. That is all done remote.
Even when I worked for a large cloud provider I was onboarded remotely. The time I worked for one of the big 3 insurance companies I had to drive to an office to present ID, but then everything thing else was remote. In my current role at a very large private equity firm I was onboarded completely remotely and they didnt' even meet me in person until about 6 months in when I attented a corporate event.
It's very possible today to get a job and never meet a single co-worker in person. My sister works in a CS role for a company based 3 or 4 states away and has never been to that office or met a single person in real life. In fact this year she even turned down the team building event to Vegas so it will be another year without seeing a living human in person.
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"From 2021 until 2024, the co-conspirators allegedly impersonated more than 80 U.S. individuals"
It's called identity theft. Are you new?
I've had my identity stolen, the problem is that courts don't punish corruption. In fact, they enable it.
Someone bought a car using my identity. Their proof of identity was my social written on a check cashing card. They had my same name, all three names. But the DOB didn't match so the person who sold them the car was in on the scam. Then a court (in Nevada City, CA) award
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That's where you get a libel judgement in the court where you live against both the company that got the first judgment and the credit agency that approved it. Clearly, someone who does not even know your correct birthdate is not you, and any credit agency involved clearly must have conspired in that fraud, so the preponderance of evidence is clearly in your favor. Thus, absent something you're not telling us, such as video footage of you providing a false birthdate, it should be trivial for you to get a
Re: How does this even work? (Score:2)
I don't have the time to go to another county far away from me for that, nor the lawyer money. Welcome to America.
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In general, the court you file in can be either the court where one of the two parties is or the court where the event occurred. As the weaker party and the plaintiff, it would take serious legal finagling for the choice of venue to not be yours. So you could file in your own local court.
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Also, a lot of lawyers will work on contingency.
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Because they hire other companies to do this shit. They all talk up their services but in reality, they do the minimum required to fulfill their contract.
Because ICE doesn't go after employers (Score:1)
Companies just want cheap labor and they could care less how they get it. So companies are happy to hire North Koreans and then act like they are victims when they get caught.
We could of course easily fix this by forcing verification but fat chance in hell that's going to happen.
In the meantime the supreme C
subcontractors? the workers are rostered as 1099er (Score:2)
subcontractors? the workers are rostered as 1099er.
and some outsourcing firm is just takeing it's cut while doing the minimum level of checks.
Whose resumes did they use? (Score:2)
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Does the DoJ notify people?
Notify who? The people whose resumes have been borrowed? What are they going to do?
Notify the prospective employers? Maybe. But FBIs counterintelligence unit doesn't typically operate to build court cases. Most of the evidence they accumulate is inadmissible due to the methods of collection. They are more interested in watching foreign ops.
This is nothing (Score:1)
Ask about locales (Score:3)
"Oh, you're in Dallas, what part? That's very interesting. I'll be there next month - what's a good restaurant there that you like? I always like to ask locals where to eat when I'm visiting get the real scoop."
The North Koreans get tripped up and stammer something irrelevant. Buh-bye, stop wasting our time.
The Feds took down one instance of the racket. It's like busting Epstein and Diddy but not the other twelve.
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You'd better be prepared to follow through, they just might call your bluff!
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Require Notarized Documents (Score:2)
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