It's evident starting in 2017-2018 with the surge of the price of crypto and the rise of WFH with COVID, North Korea pivoted from rockets to much more lucrative and safer cyber theft to enrich its leadership and attack the West. A success. Policy makers don't care.
North Korean's 100k fake IT workers net $500M a year for Kim
61–70 of 162 posts
Re: North Korean's 100k fake IT workers net $500M a year for Kim
#62A friend of mine got two such "fake" candidates for a coding interview. His experience reminded me of those "Nigerian Prince" emails from 20 years ago. These two gentlemen had western names (like "Brandon Smith") but Asian features and a tenuous grasp of spoken English; even though they claimed to have undergrad degrees from US universities. And he could tell they were looking at another screen to copy code from. Aft…
Nothing about that sound fake
Re: North Korean's 100k fake IT workers net $500M a year for Kim
#63The numbers in the headline seem odd. They imply that each (fake|fraudulent) worker only nets $5000 per year for Kim. I know the system has some inefficiencies where people behind the scenes are helping the "employee" with the work and there are cost of living expenses, taxes etc. but that seems like a pretty low take.
I had the same thought - I guess there's additional overhead in paying the in-country proxy and probably also a lot of churn (being found out and fired, and then taking a long time to find another position).
5k a year could be 2 weeks of onboarding or waiting out a bureaucratic PIP process.
Its also possible that its a numbers game and only 2/3 succeed at getting hired.
Re: North Korean's 100k fake IT workers net $500M a year for Kim
#64A friend of mine got two such "fake" candidates for a coding interview. His experience reminded me of those "Nigerian Prince" emails from 20 years ago. These two gentlemen had western names (like "Brandon Smith") but Asian features and a tenuous grasp of spoken English; even though they claimed to have undergrad degrees from US universities. And he could tell they were looking at another screen to copy code from. Aft…
Frankly sounds like many "real" candidates I've interviewed. The tenuous grasp of spoken English despite a degree taught in English is also not unusual. Setting aside the fraud for a moment (which is an insurmountable barrier to employeeing them). To some extent I'd be satisfied if they actually had a degree and were productive. They obviously need good enough receptive and written English to work. Especially if they…
The far more common fraud is:
1) Hire fake candidate
2) You realize they're fake 1-2 weeks into the role. They are unreliable. They don't show up for meetings. You have trouble communicating with them
3) You fire them
But they've already won the game. They collected a single paycheck. And for an intermediate (even junior) dev position, collecting even just a single paycheck is a big pay day for them.
The main cost to the company is time wasted, needing to open the role once more to find a real candidate who can actually do the job.
I think it's incredibly rare for these candidates to actually do the job well. (They also have fake resumes, all of their experience is made up -- so if you're expecting expertise, you're likely not going to get it)
Re: North Korean's 100k fake IT workers net $500M a year for Kim
#65So $5,000 per? That's nothing at all. They could make a lot more by doing other things.
In North Korea that's likely a lot of money. They probably get paid a lot less than that and Kim pockets the rest.
Re: North Korean's 100k fake IT workers net $500M a year for Kim
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
Frankly sounds like many "real" candidates I've interviewed. The tenuous grasp of spoken English despite a degree taught in English is also not unusual. Setting aside the fraud for a moment (which is an insurmountable barrier to employeeing them). To some extent I'd be satisfied if they actually had a degree and were productive. They obviously need good enough receptive and written English to work. Especially if they…
The far more common fraud is: 1) Hire fake candidate 2) You realize they're fake 1-2 weeks into the role. They are unreliable. They don't show up for meetings. You have trouble communicating with them 3) You fire them But they've already won the game. They collected a single paycheck. And for an intermediate (even junior) dev position, collecting even just a single paycheck is a big pay day for them. The main cost to…
Not just paycheck. They had access to some or all of your company's internal system, code, and data for the duration. That's a much bigger threat.
Re: North Korean's 100k fake IT workers net $500M a year for Kim
#67[dead]
Re: North Korean's 100k fake IT workers net $500M a year for Kim
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
The far more common fraud is: 1) Hire fake candidate 2) You realize they're fake 1-2 weeks into the role. They are unreliable. They don't show up for meetings. You have trouble communicating with them 3) You fire them But they've already won the game. They collected a single paycheck. And for an intermediate (even junior) dev position, collecting even just a single paycheck is a big pay day for them. The main cost to…
Not just paycheck. They had access to some or all of your company's internal system, code, and data for the duration. That's a much bigger threat.
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Re: North Korean's 100k fake IT workers net $500M a year for Kim
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
The far more common fraud is: 1) Hire fake candidate 2) You realize they're fake 1-2 weeks into the role. They are unreliable. They don't show up for meetings. You have trouble communicating with them 3) You fire them But they've already won the game. They collected a single paycheck. And for an intermediate (even junior) dev position, collecting even just a single paycheck is a big pay day for them. The main cost to…
Not just paycheck. They had access to some or all of your company's internal system, code, and data for the duration. That's a much bigger threat.
I wonder how achievable this would be with even a deepfake filter?
A single person does remote interviews all day. The person who turns up is just some body to run the scam.
That said, as the saying goes that's a lot of hard work, to avoid working hard.
Re: North Korean's 100k fake IT workers net $500M a year for Kim
#70I’m a little unclear on the usage of the word “fake” here. Going by article, these are real people doing actual real work, they often use stolen identities to conceal information about themselves, and they get help from outside sources to do their jobs better. Whatever the right word is, it’s not “fake”. Maybe fraudulent? Or ulterior motives? Or deceptive? Or pretext? Or threat actor? Or foreign agents?
It's North Korea though and they're all eViL. Imagine a world where the U.S lifted sanctions on N.K. traded with them and stopped crying about losing a war 70 years ago. Ah well a boy can dream. Edit: Lol saying anything positive about North Korea on hacker news and people instantly freak out. This fucking website man. North Korea isn't what I would call a free society but it's also not the hell on earth that most li…
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