New Zealand organisations are being warned to be careful about accidentally hiring North Korean IT workers.
In an advisory issued on Thursday afternoon, the National Cyber Security Centre and police said North Korea had deployed thousands of highly skilled IT workers globally who posed as remote freelancers, using false identities.
“These individuals seek employment in areas such as software development, website design, graphic design, and IT services. The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) government deploys IT workers to gather revenue, including for its nuclear weapon and ballistic missile programmes, as a method of evading UN sanctions. They may also aim to obtain foreign intellectual property to further their own research as well as attempt to steal data for ransom.”
“New Zealand companies using global contractors may unknowingly onboard DPRK IT workers, especially via freelance platforms. They are likely to target government agencies, defence contractors, technology companies, financial institutions, large corporates and other businesses with access to sensitive information, critical services, strategic technologies, or international commercial networks. DPRK workers have been known to target recruitment agencies in order to present a more legitimate persona to potential employees.”
The advisory said sometimes workers had asked New Zealanders to allow their addresses to be used for receiving mail, and used bank accounts for payments to the North Korean worker.
It set out a list of red flags that should raise concern for employers and suggested businesses should strengthen their identity verification processes.
It said they should also require all remote-only workers to use a managed corporate device rather than their own devices and monitor activity, including abnormal access patterns.