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   CONSPRCY      How big is your tinfoil hat?      2,445 messages   

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   Message 1,641 of 2,445   
   Mike Powell to All   
   North Korea's WFH espiona   
   18 Aug 25 09:35:31   
   
   TZUTC: -0500   
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   FORMAT: flowed   
   When the insider Is the adversary: North Koreas remote work espionage campaign   
      
   Date:   
   Mon, 18 Aug 2025 10:26:50 +0000   
      
   Description:   
   North Korean operatives landed remote jobs at U.S. companies, no hacking   
   required.   
      
   FULL STORY   
   ======================================================================   
      
   In a revelation that should concern every security leader, the U.S. Justice   
   Department (DOJ) recently disclosed that over 300 companies, including tech   
   giants and at least one defense contractor, unknowingly hired North Korean   
   operatives posing as remote IT workers.    
      
   These individuals infiltrated corporate networks not by breaching firewalls    
   or exploiting zero-days, but by landing jobs through video interviews,   
   onboarding processes, and legitimate access credentials. Once inside, they   
   stole sensitive data and funneled millions in earnings back to the Kim    
   regime, fueling its sanctioned weapons programs.    
      
   The campaign is one of the most aggressive, large-scale examples of an    
   insider threat - a category of risk that arises when individuals within an   
   organization, whether employees , contractors, or partners, abuse their   
   authorized access to cause harm.    
      
   Unlike external threats that, at least in theory, can be detected and stopped   
   through technical signatures or perimeter defenses, insider threats operate   
   from within, often undetected, with full access to sensitive systems and    
   data.    
      
   This North Korean operation wasnt improvised. It was calculated,    
   professional, and deeply strategic. And it signals a shift in how adversaries   
   operate: not just breaking in, but blending in.   
      
   The Threat You Cant Patch    
      
   Unlike external attackers, insider threats - especially those that enter   
   through HR services - dont trigger alerts at the door. They have keys. They   
   follow protocols. They attend standups. They do the work, or just enough of   
   it, while quietly collecting access and evading scrutiny.    
      
   Thats what makes this threat so difficult to detect and so devastating when   
   successful. These operatives didnt brute-force credentials. They werent   
   scraping dark corners of the internet. They passed interviews by using stolen   
   or fabricated identities. According to the DOJ, they often relied on American   
   citizens identities stolen through job boards or phishing. Many even went as   
   far as using AI-generated content and deepfakes to pass interviews.    
      
   Once employed, they didnt need to act suspiciously to gain access. They    
   simply did what everyone else did: log in via VPN , accessed the codebase,   
   reviewed Jira tickets, joined Slack channels. They werent intruders. They    
   were team members.   
      
   How Remote Work and AI Changed the Game    
      
   What enabled this campaign was a unique combination of evolving workplace   
   dynamics and readily available AI tools . First, the normalization of remote   
   work made it plausible to have employees who would never be physically seen    
   or meet a manager face to face. What might have once been considered an   
   unusual hire became completely normal in the post-pandemic world.    
      
   Second, generative AI gave attackers the tools to mimic fluency, build   
   impressive resumes, and even generate convincing interview responses. Some   
   operatives used synthetic video and audio to complete interviews or handle   
   technical screenings, masking language fluency gaps or cultural tells.    
      
   Then came the infrastructure. In some cases, U.S.-based collaborators helped   
   maintain laptop farms - stacks of employer-issued machines in a single   
   location controlled by the operatives using KVM switches and VPNs . This    
   setup ensured that access appeared to originate from within the United    
   States, helping them slip past geofencing and fraud detection systems.    
      
   These werent lone actors. They were part of a coordinated state-sponsored   
   effort with global infrastructure, deep operational discipline, and a clear   
   strategic mission: extract value from Western companies to fund North Koreas   
   sanctioned economy and military ambitions.   
      
   A Blind Spot in Detection    
      
   The alarming success of this campaign highlights a gap that many    
   organizations still havent addressed: detecting adversaries who look   
   legitimate on paper, behave within expected parameters, and dont trip alarms.    
      
   Traditional security tools are tuned for external anomalies: port scans,   
   malware signatures, brute-force attempts. But an insider who joins a company   
   through standard hiring, logs in during work hours, and accesses systems   
   they're authorized to use wont trigger those alerts. They arent acting   
   maliciously in a technical sense - until they are.    
      
   Whats needed is not only tighter hiring practices, but also better visibility   
   into user behavior and environment-wide activity patterns. Security teams    
   need to be able to distinguish between normal and anomalous behavior even   
   among valid users.    
      
   That means collecting and retaining forensic-grade data - logs from cloud   
   applications, identity systems, endpoint activity, and remote access   
   infrastructure - and making it searchable and analyzable at scale. Without a   
   way to retrospectively investigate how access was used, organizations are   
   flying blind. They will only know theyve been compromised once the data is   
   gone, the money is missing, or law enforcement shows up.   
      
   From Reactive to Proactive: How to Get Ahead of the Next Campaign   
      
   Defending against insider threats like this starts before the first alert. It   
   requires rethinking onboarding, monitoring, and response.    
      
   Companies need to layer behavioral analytics on top of access logs, looking   
   for subtle indicators: unusual access times, lateral movement into unexpected   
   systems, usage patterns that dont match the rest of the team. This type of   
   detection requires models trained in real-world behavior, tuned not for raw   
   volume but for suspicious variance.    
      
   It also means proactively hunting, not waiting for an alert, but actively   
   asking: what access looks unusual? Where are we seeing employees access   
   systems they typically dont use? Why is a new hire downloading a volume of   
   data typically accessed only by team leads? These questions cant be answered   
   without proper instrumentation. And they cant be answered late.   
      
   No Industry Is Immune   
      
   This campaign didnt target one sector. It was less about where the operatives   
   landed and more about how many places they could get into. Thats the hallmark   
   of a campaign focused on widespread infiltration, long-term persistence, and   
   maximum value extraction.    
      
   The companies that were affected werent necessarily careless. They were   
   operating in a threat landscape that had shifted beneath them. The attackers   
   just moved faster.   
      
   What This Means Going Forward    
      
   The remote workforce isn't going away. Neither is AI. Together, theyve    
   created both unprecedented flexibility - and unprecedented opportunity for   
   adversaries. Companies need to adapt.    
      
   Insider threats are no longer just about disgruntled employees or careless   
   contractors. Theyre adversaries with time, resources, and state backing, who   
   understand our systems, processes, and blind spots better than wed like to   
   admit.    
      
   Protecting from this threat means investing not just in prevention, but in   
   detection and investigation as well. Because the next adversary isnt knocking   
   at your firewall. Theyre already logged in.    
      
    This article was produced as part of TechRadarPro's Expert Insights channel   
   where we feature the best and brightest minds in the technology industry   
   today. The views expressed here are those of the author and are not   
   necessarily those of TechRadarPro or Future plc. If you are interested in   
   contributing find out more here:   
   https://www.techradar.com/news/submit-your-story-to-techradar-pro   
      
   ======================================================================   
   Link to news story:   
   https://www.techradar.com/pro/when-the-insider-is-the-adversary-north-koreas-r   
   emote-work-espionage-campaign   
      
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