U.S. officials say they have dealt a major blow to one of North Korea’s quietest moneymakers: remote technology jobs at U.S. companies. Officials say the FBI last month dismantled more than 40 “laptop farms” in Texas and seized nearly 200 devices used by North Korean computer workers posing as Americans, part of what authorities describe as a key funding source for Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile programs. New York Times reports.
“Increasingly, North Korean IT professionals are turning to recruiting U.S. enablers to counter enhanced private sector detections and law enforcement actions,” the Justice Department said. “These workers are hiring facilitators to complete a wider variety of tasks and, in some cases, outsourcing entire tasks to third-party foreign nationals.” Prosecutors also unveiled charges in Ohio against two U.S. citizens and 10 North Koreans based in China, accusing them of stealing identities to get jobs at about 70 U.S. companies and raking in more than $3 million between 2019 and 2025.
The FBI says thousands of workers controlled by Pyongyang are employed by Western companies, posing “a significant insider threat to national security and intellectual property theft,” TechCrunch reports. Adam Meyers of cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, who worked closely with the FBI on the investigation, told the Times that North Korean efforts to get hired for IT jobs have “increased in both prevalence and complexity.” North Koreans are using stolen U.S. identities, AI tools and fake social media profiles, investigators say.
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