North Korean Fake Employees Are Everywhere! How to Protect Your Organization
Contents
North Korean Fake
Employees Are
Everywhere!
How to Protect Your
Organization
by Roger A. Grimes
Data-Driven Defense Evangelist
North Korean Fake Employees Are Everywhere!
How To Protect Your Organization
Table of Contents
Introduction
2
Legal Consequences of Knowingly Hiring a North Korean Employee
3
KnowBe4’s North Korean Fake Employee Hire
3
Background on North Korean Fake Employees
6
Evolution
7
Growing Warnings and Other Sources
8
General Infrastructure
10
Laptop Farms
11
Inbound/Outbound Strategies
13
Other Fake Employers and Fake Employees
13
Intentions
15
Signs of a North Korean Fake Employee
15
How To Protect Your Organization
17
Summary
19
1
It is likely that thousands of organizations around the world
are accidentally hiring North Korean fake employees.
INTRODUCTION
On July 23, 2024, KnowBe4 publicly released information about how a North Korean “fake
employee” was accidentally hired and detected (https://blog.knowbe4.com/how-a-north-koreanfake-it-worker-tried-to-infiltrate-us).
In some ways, we were lucky, but we worked extremely hard to be prepared for our “luck.”
We detected the fake employee very quickly after they started to access the laptop we had sent
them in unusual ways. We shut down their corporate access within 25 minutes of our first security
alert. At no time …
Employees Are
Everywhere!
How to Protect Your
Organization
by Roger A. Grimes
Data-Driven Defense Evangelist
North Korean Fake Employees Are Everywhere!
How To Protect Your Organization
Table of Contents
Introduction
2
Legal Consequences of Knowingly Hiring a North Korean Employee
3
KnowBe4’s North Korean Fake Employee Hire
3
Background on North Korean Fake Employees
6
Evolution
7
Growing Warnings and Other Sources
8
General Infrastructure
10
Laptop Farms
11
Inbound/Outbound Strategies
13
Other Fake Employers and Fake Employees
13
Intentions
15
Signs of a North Korean Fake Employee
15
How To Protect Your Organization
17
Summary
19
1
It is likely that thousands of organizations around the world
are accidentally hiring North Korean fake employees.
INTRODUCTION
On July 23, 2024, KnowBe4 publicly released information about how a North Korean “fake
employee” was accidentally hired and detected (https://blog.knowbe4.com/how-a-north-koreanfake-it-worker-tried-to-infiltrate-us).
In some ways, we were lucky, but we worked extremely hard to be prepared for our “luck.”
We detected the fake employee very quickly after they started to access the laptop we had sent
them in unusual ways. We shut down their corporate access within 25 minutes of our first security
alert. At no time …