Thousands of suspected North Korean agents have tried to get jobs with online retail and tech giant Amazon using fake and stolen identities.
Amazon has blocked more than 1,800 such applications, the BBC reported.
Amazon chief security officer Stephen Schmidt said in a post on LinkedIn. “Their objective is typically straightforward: get hired, get paid, and funnel wages back to fund the regime’s weapons programs,” he said, adding that this trend is likely to be happening at scale across the industry, especially in the US.”
There has been a rise of almost a third in job applications from North Koreans in the past year. Schmidt said they often work with operators of “laptop farms” – meaning computers based in the US that are run remotely from outside the country.
Amazon has used methods such as AI tools and verification by its staff to screen job applications.
Schmidt advised other companies to be alert to signs of fraudulent North Korean job applications, including wrongly formatted phone numbers and mismatched education histories.
US and South Korean authorities have previously warned about North Korean agents conducting online fraud.
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