back to article FBI warns of North Korean cyberspies posing as foreign IT workers

Pay close attention to that resume before offering that work contract. The FBI, in a joint advisory with the US government Departments of State and Treasury, has warned that North Korea's cyberspies are posing as non-North-Korean IT workers to bag Western jobs to advance Kim Jong-un's nefarious pursuits. In guidance [PDF] …

  1. This post has been deleted by its author

  2. fg_swe Bronze badge

    The Power Of Suebi Education

    https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Jong-un#Ausbildung

  3. VoiceOfTruth Silver badge

    In other news

    All Americans abroad should be treated as spies. How do you like them apples?

  4. Halfmad

    Outsourced development

    Reminds me of the developer who outsourced his own work abroad and simply rocked up to work, switched his PC on and let the third party remotely do his work for him each day. Took a while for him to be caught.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-21043693

    1. VoiceOfTruth Silver badge

      Re: Outsourced development

      The man was a hero.

    2. batfink

      Re: Outsourced development

      He was simply following the example set by many large companies in outsourcing his labour requirements to a cheaper source.

      1. MachDiamond Silver badge

        Re: Outsourced development

        "He was simply following the example set by many large companies in outsourcing his labour requirements to a cheaper source."

        It's more like he's using that predilection to worm into ways of exploiting the decadent West.

        If you want to play the evil villain, what better thing than to have your own nation to operate from. <insert evil laughter and a volcanic background>

  5. aregross

    Well this explains how NK got Covid!

  6. martinusher Silver badge

    ...and I just thought they wanted a job

    Silly me. There's always a 'nefarious motive' where those foreign types are involved.

    Just think how many people would be out of a job if we dialed back all that them/us nonsense -- all those sanctions enforcement personnel, spies and counter spies, think tanks, pools of experts divining what whoever had for breakfast. I reckon half our economy must be riding on this stuff (and the other half goes to pay for it). Obviously we wouldn't switch it all off, just dial it back to a prudent level. (...and maybe deploy some of the displaced FBI types as IT workers?)

    (In other news the "Disinformation Governance Board", a newly minted component of our "Department of Homeland Security" has been 'paused', probably due to excessive lampooning and unwarranted comparisons with Orwell's MinTruth.)

  7. batfink

    How big an actual problem is this?

    Ok I can see the possibilty. However, how are these evil DPRK spies getting these jobs in the first place? I can't imagine that the English (or other) language skills of your average DPRK dev are all that good, given their education system and lack of (official) access to actual foreign language speakers. How are they passing interviews? So how successful is this "posing"? How many actual cases have there been?

    This sounds a bit like "Furriners! Can't trust them you know" to me.

    1. MachDiamond Silver badge

      Re: How big an actual problem is this?

      "I can't imagine that the English (or other) language skills of your average DPRK dev are all that good, given their education system and lack of (official) access to actual foreign language speakers."

      The people being interviewed are highly trained in language skills and coached in real time how to answer the questions in a live interview. It's very common for people on computer conference calls to be wearing headphones/ear buds. Whose to say they aren't being fed answers by a subject matter expert. How hard would it be for the DPRK to set up an office in India to make a company think they are hiring a programmer from India? The front could be staffed and managed by Indian nationals but owned by Mr Kim with only a couple of IT people knowing that data is being mirrored with modifications being injected into the delivered product if wanted.

      This is the same as hiring somebody to sit an exam for you in a large lecture class where the professor has no idea who their students are (since TA's proctor the exams) and ID isn't being demanded to sit the test. These frees up your time to concentrate on doing well in lab where you won't have that option.

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