The United States on Monday (May 16) formally warned companies against hiring highly skilled North Korean computer scientists posing as foreigners whose earnings fund Korea’s banned “weapons” programs.
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Pyongyang “has deployed thousands of highly skilled IT specialists around the world making money for North Korea by contributing to its weapons programs in violation of the US and US sanctions. United Nations”, the foreign and foreign ministries, the finance ministry and the federal police confirm in this “warning”. It comes as the North Korean power, which has failed to respond to repeated calls for dialogue from Washington, is stepping up missile launches in violation of international sanctions and could soon conduct its first nuclear test since 2017, according to the American government.
remote workers
These IT workers, who often work remotely, generally conceal their North Korean nationality and pose as foreigners and sometimes as telecommuters based in the United States, US authorities say. In support of a diagram, they describe the modus operandi of these incognito agents: They “purchase access to a ‘forwarding account’ to hide their identities,” then submit “false or spoofed” identifiers to “open freelance work platform accounts” and “online “Get payment” before you get a job.
The American authorities provide clues as to how they can be identified: multiple connections to an account from different IP addresses in a short time, frequent transfers via payment platforms – especially to bank accounts in China – or payment requests in virtual currency. Hiring these North Koreans exposes the employer to “many risks,” including “theft of intellectual property and data” and “legal ramifications” for circumventing international sanctions, US diplomatic spokesman Ned Price warned. These true computer scientists can also “use the privileged access they are given for their work for illicit purposes, such as enabling malicious cyber intrusions by other North Korean actors,” Washington said.