Security News > 2024 > August > US 'laptop farm' man accused of outsourcing his IT jobs to North Korea to fund weapons programs

The FBI today arrested a Tennessee man suspected of running a "Laptop farm" that got North Koreans, posing as Westerners, IT jobs at American and British companies.

According to US prosecutors, Matthew Isaac Knoot, 38, of Nashville, defrauded multiple US and UK companies by applying for remote technology jobs, and then secretly outsourced those jobs to North Koreans.

From July 2022 to August 2023, Knoot worked at an unspecified number of "US media, technology, and financial companies," who thought they had hired a one Andrew M, a US citizen whose identity was stolen by the Tennessean, it is claimed.

Instead, as the Dept of Justice alleges, the laptops were pooled in the US by Knoot, North Korean ghost workers connected in remotely to do the work he was tasked with, and as far as the UK and US employers were concerned, they were employing a guy in America using American broadband.

Security biz KnowBe4 hired fake North Korean techie, who got straight to work ... on evil North Korean chap charged for attacks on US hospitals, military, NASA - and even China North Korea likely behind takedown of Indian crypto exchange WazirX North Korea building cash reserves using ransomware, video games.

In May, an Arizona woman was snared for allegedly infiltrating over 300 companies to acquire jobs for North Koreans.

News URL

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/08/08/north_korea_laptop_farm_arrest/