Security News > 2024 > August > DOJ Charges Nashville Man for Helping North Koreans Get U.S. Tech Jobs

The U.S. Department of Justice on Thursday charged a 38-year-old individual from Nashville, Tennessee, for allegedly running a "Laptop farm" to help get North Koreans remote jobs with American and British companies.

Court documents allege that Knoot participated in a worker fraud scheme by letting North Korean actors get employment at information technology companies in the U.K. and the U.S. It's believed that the revenue generation efforts are a way to fund North Korea's illicit weapons program.

"Knoot assisted them in using a stolen identity to pose as a U.S. citizen, hosted company laptops at his residences, downloaded and installed software without authorization on such laptops to facilitate access and perpetuate the deception, and conspired to launder payments for the remote IT work, including to accounts tied to North Korean and Chinese actors," the DoJ said.

Recent advisories from the U.S. government have revealed that these IT workers, part of the Workers' Party of Korea's Munitions Industry Department, are routinely dispatched to live abroad in countries like China and Russia, from where they are hired as freelance IT workers to generate revenue for the hermit kingdom.

"The remote desktop applications enabled the North Korean IT workers to work from locations in China, while appearing to the victim companies that 'Andrew M.' was working from Knoot's residences in Nashville," the DoJ said.

Last month, security awareness training firm KnowBe4 revealed it was tricked into hiring an IT worker from North Korea as a software engineer, who used the stolen identity of a U.S. citizen and enhanced their picture using artificial intelligence.

News URL

https://thehackernews.com/2024/08/doj-charges-nashville-man-for-helping.html