A joint advisory alert issued by the State Department, Department of Transportation and the Federal Bureau of Investigation warned about the risks of hiring remote IT workers from the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
DPRK IT workers have reportedly been posing as non-DPRK nationals to get jobs, according to a State Department news release.
“We have issued an advisory to warn companies all over the world of the many risks that come with hiring IT workers from the DPRK: intellectual property and data theft, reputational harm and legal consequences,” State Department spokesperson Ned Price said in a May 16 post on Twitter.
DPRK has thousands of highly skilled IT workers dispatched around the world working to generate revenue to contribute to the DPRK weapons program which violates U.S and U.N sanctions, according to a fact sheet. DPRK IT workers have been documented abusing freelance work platforms and social media platforms to communicate with clients and payment platforms to receive payment.
They also misrepresent themselves as non-DPRK residents or as U.S-based teleworkers through the use of VPNs, VPSs or through the purchase of third-country IP addresses, proxy accounts and falsified or stolen ID documents, the fact sheet reported. Additionally, these workers frequently use their privileged access as contractors for illicit purposes, which includes enabling malicious cyber intrusions by other DPRK actors.
These DPRK IT workers generate at least 10 times the amount of income that average North Korean workers would make in a factory or on a construction project overseas, according to an advisory guidance report. They can earn more than $300,000 each year on an individual basis, and IT teams can collectively generate more than $3 million annually.
