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North Korean IT workers have infiltrated the Fortune 500

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Re: North Korean IT workers have infiltrated the Fortune 500

#31

Post by bitmasher9 »

cootsnuck wrote: post #25

So whenever I have gotten a job in tech, I've had to complete a background check if I get the job offer. How exactly are these fake profiles passing basic background checks? They would have to be impersonating real people if pretending to be Americans. Unless these companies aren't doing the most basic background checks beyond just looking at resumes and LinkedIn profiles. Pretty weird and seems not too difficult to…

If you’re a state actor it probably wouldn’t be too hard to create US citizen IDs anyone could fall into.

Hack a hospital to give a birth certificate for a new born baby (easily within NK’s reach), and then mail the documents for a SS card. In eighteen years have an agent take the GED and SAT, and score well enough to get into state school. Then graduate and apply to the list of target companies you want to infiltrate.

You’d have to go pretty deep into someone’s identity to unearth this sort of approach. Probably not enough for a military clearance, but enough for anything not directly defense related.

Re: North Korean IT workers have infiltrated the Fortune 500

#32

Post by gregdoesit »

If you think the issue of devs using fake identities is a problem limited to the Fortune 500: I talked with a 6-person startup who very nearly hired a person who could have been from anywhere else than they claimed, including North Korea. All they know is the candidate used an AI filter to make them look like a Polish person [1] - and this startup recorded when they caught this faker.

This is a full-remote startup and they have now added a mandatory in-person interview to their recruitment loop.

Amusingly, in their case, using local job boards did not help: they got candidates pretending to from Poland or Serbia, yet not speaking the language.

A little sad to see how each episode like this casts more doubt and uncertainty into full-remote interviewing.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43340994

Re: North Korean IT workers have infiltrated the Fortune 500

#33

Post by ryandrake »

jdyer9 wrote: post #21
iJohnDoe wrote: post #10

I don’t understand this. There are well qualified legitimate candidates desperate for a job. How are North Koreans getting these jobs instead? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43612448

Imagine that your reputation didn't matter, getting sued was out of the question, and there was no criminal liability: your job, backed by the government, is to be employed by as many tech firms for as long as you can, you'd probably work pretty hard on coming up with a reasonable but very good resume and work hard on how to interview well. Now, you're a professional interviewer and might conduct 10x-100x more interv…

Absolutely damning of the tech industry’s interviewing and recruiting process if companies can’t distinguish between a “professional interviewer” (regardless of their nationality) and an actually talented candidate who does one interview a year or so.

Re: North Korean IT workers have infiltrated the Fortune 500

#34

Post by behringer »

davideg wrote: post #27
cootsnuck wrote: post #25

So whenever I have gotten a job in tech, I've had to complete a background check if I get the job offer. How exactly are these fake profiles passing basic background checks? They would have to be impersonating real people if pretending to be Americans. Unless these companies aren't doing the most basic background checks beyond just looking at resumes and LinkedIn profiles. Pretty weird and seems not too difficult to…

The article gets into this where real Americans do job interviews and if they get a job they can keep 30% of the salary and have to pass off the remaining 70%: > In the IT worker scheme, once someone involved gets an interview, North Koreans use remote-desktop tools to help coach people through the Q&A with a recruiter. > Aidan Raney, founder of Farnsworth Intelligence, posed as an American willing to help North Kore…

Why apologize? He probably saved the company millions. Hopefully he told them what to look for.

Re: North Korean IT workers have infiltrated the Fortune 500

#35

Post by fsloth »

infecto wrote: post #29
tkel wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're doing the racist rhetoric. There's no one in north korea that isn't "an agent of the state"? Give me a break. You sound ridiculous.

Is it really racist? North Korea is the most tightly controlled country in the world. Seems too easy to just throw out the racist card when you did not refute or provide any counter point. I am certain there are good people in North Korea but it would be hard to figure folks allegiances. A lifetime of propaganda can really do something to the mind.

I’m not sure what you mean by ‘good’.

May I suggest you may have meant ‘there are probably people who in the deepest of their heart disagree with state policy’.

If the state can execute your family on a whim because somebody stepped out of line you keep generally those sentiments well hidden.

But _liking_ the policies of the state where you live in is generally not considered a vice. So if a person who disagrees with the NK state is ‘good’ this implies people who agree NK state are ‘bad’ and I don’t think that’s the right framework when discussing large populations of nation states.

Re: North Korean IT workers have infiltrated the Fortune 500

#37

Post by plsbenice34 »

throwaway_ab wrote: post #20

A flagged post mentions this is racist and typical anti immigration rhetoric. That's not true, there are only two types of North Korean people you'll meet, either those that have defected and escaped North Korea or those that are agents of the state of North Korea. There are very few defectors in existence and once they escape they're given full South Korean citizenship. This article is not about those people. The va…

What about Australia in comparison? Australians can be legally compelled in secret courts to install backdoors in the companies in which they are employed, and gagged from telling the company itself or any journalists (see the Access and Assistance Bill). That doesn't cross the same 'agents of the state' line?

Re: North Korean IT workers have infiltrated the Fortune 500

#38

Post by behringer »

OhioMan2943 wrote: post #16
iJohnDoe wrote: post #10

I don’t understand this. There are well qualified legitimate candidates desperate for a job. How are North Koreans getting these jobs instead? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43612448

Is this to imply that north Koreans can't be well qualified legitimate candidates?

Legitimate? You do realize it's illegal to hire NK workers in most civilized countries?

Re: North Korean IT workers have infiltrated the Fortune 500

#40

Post by hhjinks »

plsbenice34 wrote: post #37
throwaway_ab wrote: post #20

A flagged post mentions this is racist and typical anti immigration rhetoric. That's not true, there are only two types of North Korean people you'll meet, either those that have defected and escaped North Korea or those that are agents of the state of North Korea. There are very few defectors in existence and once they escape they're given full South Korean citizenship. This article is not about those people. The va…

What about Australia in comparison? Australians can be legally compelled in secret courts to install backdoors in the companies in which they are employed, and gagged from telling the company itself or any journalists (see the Access and Assistance Bill). That doesn't cross the same 'agents of the state' line?

It doesn't, because every Australian leaving Australia is not compelled to do so by said secret courts. 1 >>>>> e-100000
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