North Korea's fake IT worker scheme takes dangerous turn as new threats emerge every day
What began as a scheme to generate cash for North Korea by deploying fake IT workers in American companies has now turned into an opportunity to collect intelligence from high...
By Fox News · Fox News
What began as a scheme to generate cash for North Korea by deploying fake IT workers in American companies has now turned into an opportunity to collect intelligence from high value targets, cybersecurity researchers warn. New details are emerging of the sprawling spy operation within U.S. borders, with cybersecurity tech company CrowdStrike claiming it is finding one or two suspected North Korea IT worker cases every single day. The scheme is creating a heightened espionage foothold inside American companies spanning multiple industries with CrowdStrike claiming it has seen remote IT workers hand off access to malware teams when North Korea identifies intelligence worth collecting — and federal cases show overseas workers gaining access to sensitive U.S. military technology. "They don't discriminate," Adam Meyers, CrowdStrike's head of counter adversary operations, told Fox News Digital, explaining that the workers apply broadly across industries, from consumer companies to defense contractors. But when they land inside a "particularly juicy target," Meyers said, CrowdStrike has seen the operation handed off to a malware team "because they realize that there's some intelligence value and something that they want to collect." Meyers did not say whether the malware teams successfully collected sensitive information after those handoffs. CHINA-LINKED HACKERS INFILTRATED US GOVERNMENT NETWORKS BEFORE FBI TAKEDOWN The FBI is now warning that the scheme poses a "significant national security and intellectual property theft insider threat." North Korean workers are targeting cleared defense contractors, jobs that require U.S. government security clearances and even active-duty military personnel who can host company laptops. Recent federal cases illustrate the stakes — from a worker who successfully accessed controlled technical information at an AI defense contractor to impostors who secured offers for jobs involving military AI a…