North Korea Expands Its Fraudulent IT Worker Operations
North Korea’s fraudulent employment operations have expanded to hit countries around the world, with a particular focus on Europe, according to researchers at Google’s Threat Intelligence Group.
While the United States remains a key target, the expansion to other countries is likely driven by increased awareness and a recent crackdown by the US Justice Department.
These scams involve North Korean nationals fraudulently obtaining remote positions at foreign companies in order to earn money for the DPRK government.
“In late 2024, one DPRK IT worker operated at least 12 personas across Europe and the United States,” the researchers explain. “The IT Worker actively sought employment with multiple organizations within Europe, particularly those within the defense industrial base and government sectors. This individual demonstrated a pattern of providing fabricated references, building a rapport with job recruiters, and using additional personas they controlled to vouch for their credibility.
Separately, additional investigations uncovered other IT worker personas seeking employment in Germany and Portugal, alongside login credentials for user accounts of European job websites and human capital management platforms.”
In addition to stealing a paycheck from their employers, these workers may also conduct espionage or extortion attacks.
“Alongside global expansion, DPRK IT workers are also evolving their tactics,” Google says. “Based on data from multiple sources, GTIG assesses that since late October 2024, IT workers have increased the volume of extortion attempts and gone after larger organizations. In these incidents, recently fired IT workers threatened to release their former employers’ sensitive data or to provide it to a competitor. This data included proprietary data and source code for internal projects.”
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Google has the story.
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