"FBI: Thousands of Remote IT Workers Sent Wages to North Korea to Help Fund Weapons Program"
The FBI and Department of Justice (DoJ) have recently announced that 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. The DoJ noted 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. The FBI announced the seizure of $1.5 million and 17 domain names as part of the investigation, which is ongoing. The FBI said that any company that hired freelance IT workers “more than likely” hired someone participating in the scheme. The FBI noted that this scheme is so prevalent that companies must be vigilant to verify whom they’re hiring. The FBI recommends that employers take additional proactive steps with remote IT workers to make it harder for bad actors to hide their identities. Officials didn’t name the companies that unknowingly hired North Korean workers or say when the practice began. Court documents allege that the government of North Korea 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.