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United States IT

Thousands of Remote IT Workers Sent Wages To North Korea To Help Fund Weapons Program, Says FBI (apnews.com) 44

echo123 shares a report from the Associated Press: Thousands of information technology workers contracting with U.S. companies have for years secretly sent millions of dollars of their wages to North Korea for use in its ballistic missile program, FBI and Department of Justice officials said. The Justice Department said Wednesday that IT workers dispatched and contracted by North Korea to work remotely with companies in St. Louis and elsewhere in the U.S. have been using false identities to get the jobs. The money they earned was funneled to the North Korean weapons program, FBI leaders said at a news conference in St. Louis.

Court documents allege that North Korea's government dispatched thousands of skilled IT workers to live primarily in China and Russia with the goal of deceiving businesses from the U.S. and elsewhere into hiring them as freelance remote employees. The workers used various techniques to make it look like they were working in the U.S., including paying Americans to use their home Wi-Fi connections, said Jay Greenberg, special agent in charge of the St. Louis FBI office. Greenberg said any company that hired freelance IT workers "more than likely" hired someone participating in the scheme. An FBI spokeswoman said Thursday that the North Koreans contracted with companies across the U.S. and in some other countries. "We can tell you that there are thousands of North Korea IT workers that are part of this," spokeswoman Rebecca Wu said. Federal authorities announced the seizure of $1.5 million and 17 domain names as part of the investigation, which is ongoing. FBI officials said the scheme is so prevalent that companies must be extra vigilant in verifying whom they are hiring, including requiring interviewees to at least be seen via video.

The IT workers generated millions of dollars a year in their wages to benefit North Korea's weapons programs. In some instances, the North Korean workers also infiltrated computer networks and stole information from the companies that hired them, the Justice Department said. They also maintained access for future hacking and extortion schemes, the agency said. Officials didn't name the companies that unknowingly hired North Korean workers, say when the practice began, or elaborate on how investigators became aware of it. But federal authorities have been aware of the scheme for some time.

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Thousands of Remote IT Workers Sent Wages To North Korea To Help Fund Weapons Program, Says FBI

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  • by registrations_suck ( 1075251 ) on Friday October 20, 2023 @08:49PM (#63940991)

    This is why we can't have nice things. Remote work is bad! See?!?

    Now, BACK TO THE OFFICE! Schnell! Schnell!!

    • North Korean workers send abroad to China and Russia then working remotely for US companies.

      I'm sure Saint Louis is lovely but why can't it attract local talent to work in its offices?

    • Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Friday October 20, 2023 @09:34PM (#63941065)
      Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • So you’re telling me these companies pay you good money to half ass a job? Sounds good to me!

      • This has nothing to do with remote work and everything to do with lazy ass companies that don't properly vet the contractors working for them.

        But then people would complain about the massive invasion of privacy that is encountered during the simple act of finding a job.

        There has to be some in-between point where both sides can meet on the question of vetting workers.

    • I read that differently. It basically says we have to outlaw offshoring because it's way easier to do something like that from countries with lax immigration laws where it's heaps easier for NKor to plant their people.

      Get those jobs back from India! Now!

  • Yes, you'll have to pay people fairly and abide by labour laws.

    Time to make companies liable for supporting terrorist states even if they were only negligent about it. That'll teach them to stop taking shortcuts.
    • I guess you missed the part about the workers made it look like they were in the U.S.

      • So? They were looking to hire cheap, above all else. Hire and forget. That would preclude most local workers.

        The fault is on them.
        • Not a single company anywhere wants to pay more than is required to get who they need. Nothing wrong with that either.

          • Not a single company anywhere wants to pay more than is required to get who they need. Nothing wrong with that either.

            Haven't seen how much companies will pay, or how many perks they'll give, for CEOs and other C suits because that's the only way to get the talent they need, have you?

          • by The Evil Atheist ( 2484676 ) on Friday October 20, 2023 @09:51PM (#63941091)
            That's why I propose making companies liable for hiring them. If they want to maximize profits, then they have to pay for their mistakes too. Why should the rest of us suffer for their greed?

            If you take the risk, you should bear the brunt of the consequences.
          • by cusco ( 717999 )

            Disagree here, I worked at Amazon for nine years. They recognize that skill and experience is valuable, and retention of skilled and experienced employees is highest when they pay higher and treat people better. The average Amazon blue badge makes over $102,000/year with a shitload of benefits, mostly reasonable management, and we got to work on interesting cutting-edge projects that are changing the world. Sure, they expect a ton of work out of you and expect you do it right almost every time, but I rea

      • I guess you missed the part about the workers made it look like they were in the U.S.

        Perhaps you actually meant: appearing to be remote workers that were located somewhere within the US ?

        • I can only see that in the US, we at least noticed it.

          You think that doesn't happen with outsourced work in India? It does. The difference is the scale, and the fact that we don't even find out about it because India sure as all hell won't give a fuck and doesn't want to endanger its IT "industry".

  • Were the workers allowed to buy anything to eat with their wages?

  • by hdyoung ( 5182939 ) on Friday October 20, 2023 @09:04PM (#63941025)
    NK sends their smartest, most educated people to work for the west, probably in the lowest wage bracket imaginable. And the money they make gets sent back home in order to maintain a feudal-style warlord system where everybody except for the 100 richest families are living in a constant state of near-starvation.

    In a really weird, cynical way, I guess I’m ok with this. The cream of the NK crop works for us for pennies. Our intelligence agencies know about it, so the info they get is gonna be controlled and probably filled with misinformation planted by the NSA. And, come on, let’s be totally honest - NK’s missile program isn’t any sort of real threat. Whichever beach-ball-shaped JongUn happens to be in power is irrelevant. He knows that the second they launch a nuke, 3 US nukes will fly in the other direction, and the elite NK families will be vaporized. No more palaces. No more french congnac and cuban cigars. No more sleeping with the latest girl-band members. No more secretly sending their kids to the best European and American schools.

    NK exists because China wants a no-mans-land between itself and a democratic South Korea. If it ever ceases to function as such, China will roll in and install someone more pliable. JongUn knows who he REALLY answers to. He will sit tightly on those nukes like a a hen on a bunch of eggs.
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • In the case of South Korea, NK doesn't even need chemical weapons. NK has a lot of conventional artillery close to its border with SK, camouflaged and fortified, aimed at Seoul, which is within range. In a few minutes they can destroy Seoul. The US could eventually destroy these installations since NK has little by way of air defense and the US has the firepower, but not before Seoul and its inhabitants are destroyed.
    • Our intelligence agencies know about it, so the info they get is gonna be controlled and probably filled with misinformation planted by the NSA.

      You're giving the agencies a lot of credit there. I'm much more skeptic about them.

    • North Korea exists, because Russia invaded Korea from the north, and the US invaded Korea from the south.
      Instead of agreeing, the liberated Korea from Japan, the agreed on: it is part of "greater Japan" and hence needs to be occupied.
      Just like east Germany fell to the Russians, and the rest to the other 3 allied forces.
      Bottom line: the sour state the current world is in, is all Americas fault.

      And the kind of fucked up situation in China is the fault of the invading countries. European ... American, does not

      • Yes, yes, its everybody elses fault. Ive heard that trope over and over and over from dozens of places. Theres some validity to it. History is complex. But at some point the state of your backyard is your own damn responsibility.
  • What were the terms of this "sharing" of WiFi? Probably violated the TOS of the internet provider.

    Did they have reason to know this was being done for a fraudulent purpose?

  • Oh please tell me that one of them was BDS [wikipedia.org].

  • Darknet Diaries had a great expose of the scam [darknetdiaries.com], which is very relevant for the slashdot community:

    It is really desirable is to impersonate someone with a rich Github, (and LinkedIn) history, because that stuff, (historical GIT commits), can't be faked and is what employers look for. One only need to masquerade as the real developer once, to get one remote job while the real developer never has to know.

    Darknet diaries doesn't say anything about who these people are, but TFA has now quoted the FBI stating Nor

  • Or is there an option to have ones taxes diverted from that that I'm unaware of?
    Can we at least get the warheads we send overseas to be painted with smiley faces, and/or the logos of our choosing?

    • I’m all for nascar rules being applied to politicians. They are required to wear clothes with the logos of their political donors. Logo sizes being proportional to the dollar amount.

    • For the workers themselves, this is a fantastic setup, compared to living in NK. Russia and China wouldn't be on my list of top places to live but compared to NK that's a huge upgrade. I wonder how much trouble NK has keeping the loyalties of such agents.

      It's also a pretty honest grift, in the sense that they were actually performing the work for the paycheck they received. (As compared to, say, North Korea just printing fake $USD, which they do). Of course it's also an IT security nightmare for their e

  • Dollars to donuts that the North Koreans produced a better work product than those that were deliberately outsourced to places like India.

  • Call me cynical. Call me jaded. I really need to see the raw classified data behind this before I get my panties in a whirl. Yes, they have a handful of documented cases where this happened but there's a bit of a chasm between that and some massive, successful, concerted effort. Seems like Cheney in the bunker type stuff to justify their existence. Sure they could threaten their families and whatnot but would seem to me if they sent talented folks abroad they'd have a hard time keeping them in the fold.

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