Amazon blocks 1,800 North Koreans IT workers from entering the company

The e-commerce giant Amazon, has blocked more than 18,00 job applicants from suspected North Korean agents. The US tech firm has stopped the North Koreans from joining the company as Pyongyang sends large numbers of IT workers overseas to earn and launder funds.

In a post on LinkedIn, Amazon’s Chief Security Officer Stephen Schmidt said last week that North Korean workers had been “attempting to secure remote IT jobs with companies worldwide, particularly in the US”.

“Their objective is typically straightforward: get hired, get paid, and funnel wages back to fund the regime’s weapons programs,” he said

Authorities in the US and South Korea have warned about Pyongyang’s operatives carrying out online scams.

The North Koreans typically use “laptop farms” – a computer in the United States operated remotely from outside the country, he said.

He also warned that the problem is not only limited to only Amazon but is happening at a huge scale across the IT sector.  

In July, a woman in Arizona was sentenced to more than eight years in prison for running a laptop farm helping North Korean IT workers secure remote jobs at more than 300 US companies.  

Last year, Seoul’s intelligence agency warned that North Korean operatives had used LinkedIn to pose as recruiters and approach South Koreans working at defence firms to obtain information on their technologies.

“North Korea is actively training cyber personnel and infiltrating key locations worldwide,” Hong Min, an analyst at the Korea Institute for National Unification, told AFP.

“Given Amazon’s business nature, the motive seems largely economic, with a high likelihood that the operation was planned to steal financial assets,” he added further.  

The US Department of the Treasury has accused North Korea-affiliated cybercriminals of stealing over $3 billion over the past three years, primarily in cryptocurrency.