{"id":4801,"date":"2025-12-28T08:25:54","date_gmt":"2025-12-28T08:25:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/marketsfortress.com\/index.php\/2025\/12\/28\/north-korean-agents-are-trying-to-infiltrate-amazon-chief-security-officer-says\/"},"modified":"2025-12-28T08:25:54","modified_gmt":"2025-12-28T08:25:54","slug":"north-korean-agents-are-trying-to-infiltrate-amazon-chief-security-officer-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/marketsfortress.com\/index.php\/2025\/12\/28\/north-korean-agents-are-trying-to-infiltrate-amazon-chief-security-officer-says\/","title":{"rendered":"North Korean agents are trying to infiltrate Amazon, chief security officer says"},"content":{"rendered":"

Amazon<\/a> has blocked hundreds of job applications from suspected North Korean<\/a> operatives, according to the U.S. tech giant’s chief security officer, amid growing concerns over cyber scams<\/a> connected to Pyongyang.<\/p>\n

\u201cTheir objective is typically straightforward: get hired, get paid, and funnel wages back to fund the regime\u2019s weapons programs,\u201d Stephen Schmidt wrote Friday on LinkedIn, adding that applicants were using fake or stolen identities to pursue remote IT jobs in the U.S. and worldwide. <\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve stopped more than 1,800 suspected DPRK operatives from joining since April 2024,\u201d he said, using the initialism for the secretive communist state\u2019s official name, the Democratic People\u2019s Republic of Korea. \u201cWe\u2019ve detected 27% more DPRK-affiliated applications quarter over quarter this year,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

The fraud was detected by Amazon’s AI-powered application screening system combined with manual verification by its staff, he said. <\/p>\n

Schmidt said the agents often use so-called laptop farms \u2014 computers physically based in the U.S. but operated remotely from abroad \u2014 to conceal their true locations.<\/p>\n

In June, the Justice Department said it had uncovered 29 illegal \u201claptop farms\u201d across the U.S. that were being used by North Korean IT workers.<\/p>\n

Those cases involved U.S.-based people who created fraudulent companies and “hosted laptop farms,” giving North Korean agents remote access to U.S. victim company-provided laptop computers, the Justice Department said in a news release at the time. <\/p>\n

\"HumanX
Stephen Schmidt.<\/span>Big Event Media \/ Getty Images for HumanX Conference<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cThese schemes target and steal from U.S. companies and are designed to evade sanctions and fund the North Korean regime\u2019s illicit programs, including its weapons programs,\u201d Assistant Attorney General John A. Eisenberg of the Justice Department’s National Security Division was quoted as saying in the release. <\/p>\n

The following month, a woman from Arizona was sentenced to more than eight years in prison for running a laptop farm that helped North Korean IT workers get remote jobs at over 300 U.S. companies.<\/p>\n

The scheme generated more than $17 million in illicit revenue for her and Pyongyang, the Justice Department said in a statement at the time.<\/p>\n

NBC News did not receive an immediate response when it asked the North Korean Embassy in London for comment Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Schmidt wrote in his post numerous other strategies used by fraudulent workers are likely to be operating at scale across the whole industry.<\/p>\n

Amazon is one of the world\u2019s largest employers, and its experience of large-scale cyber threats \u201cgives us unique visibility into how these operations evolve and a responsibility to share what we\u2019re learning,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

Identity theft and various LinkedIn strategies have become more elaborate, with fraudulent workers impersonating real software engineers and hijacking LinkedIn profiles of active professionals, Schmidt said. <\/strong><\/p>\n

“We\u2019ve also identified networks where people hand over access to their accounts in exchange for payment,” he added. <\/p>\n

\u201cSmall details give them away,\u201d he said, warning employers to watch out for common signs of fraud, including incorrectly formatted phone numbers and inconsistent education histories.<\/p>\n

The U.S., Japan and South Korea held a joint forum in Tokyo to improve collaboration against the growing threat of North Korean operatives posing as IT workers in August. <\/p>\n

In a joint statement, the three countries said that \u201chiring, supporting, or outsourcing work to North Korean IT workers increasingly poses serious risks, ranging from theft of intellectual property, data, and funds to reputational harm and legal consequences.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Amazon has blocked hundreds of job applications from suspected North Korean operatives, according to the U.S. tech giant’s chief security officer, amid growing concerns over cyber scams connected to Pyongyang. \u201cTheir objective is typically straightforward: get hired, get paid, and funnel wages back to fund the regime\u2019s weapons programs,\u201d Stephen Schmidt wrote Friday on LinkedIn, <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":4802,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-4801","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marketsfortress.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4801","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marketsfortress.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marketsfortress.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marketsfortress.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4801"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/marketsfortress.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4801\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marketsfortress.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4802"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marketsfortress.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4801"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marketsfortress.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4801"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marketsfortress.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4801"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}