In July 2024, KnowBe4 revealed that we had unknowingly employed a North Korean who was pretending to be another person. We locked down the laptop computer that was despatched to the pretend worker inside 25 minutes of receiving an alert that he was attempting to do one thing suspicious, and at no time did the North Korean have entry to buyer knowledge or methods.
We now have since up to date our hiring processes accordingly to stop future occurrences and checked all present workers to verify no others have been in related considerations.
On July 24,2024, we publicly posted the primary of a number of articles regarding the rent. It instantly went viral leading to dozens of reports tales and numerous media consideration. So far as we all know, we’re the primary firm to ever publicly reveal the small print of the North Korean hiring and detection occasion, regardless of a number of a whole bunch different U.S. corporations having skilled related conditions previously. We have been applauded by many safety specialists and legislation enforcement for publicly sharing our expertise.
There are proper now, probably, a whole bunch of North Korean pretend workers at the moment employed by U.S. corporations and sure 1000’s all over the world. There are probably 1000’s of U.S. corporations right now receiving resumes and functions from North Korean pretend workers and a few of these candidates can be unknowingly employed.
One of the best ways to stop unknowingly hiring a pretend worker is to pay attention to it and implement wanted controls in your hiring course of to stop it.
To assist mitigate the specter of different corporations hiring North Korean or different nation-state pretend workers, we publicly posted a number of associated weblog articles, two webinars, and an in depth whitepaper.
Listed below are among the different KnowBe4 North Korean pretend worker articles beforehand posted:
Tough North Koreans
You’ll be stunned how difficult the North Korean pretend workers are. They usually use stolen, however actual identities of residents within the international locations they’re focusing on, in order that any background checks cross with flying colours. They make the most of AI-enhanced footage, video, and different instruments to get themselves employed. They’ve pretend LinkedIn profiles, pretend GitHub initiatives, and faux references prepared to offer them glowing evaluations.
They’ve a whole bunch of native residents serving to them to keep up the fraud. They’ll purchase pretend IDs, get pretend driver licenses and passports, and choose up and redistribute payroll checks. They’ve native residents choose up company-sent laptops who then set them up for distant logins in a bigger “laptop computer farm”. They use VPNs to pretend their location and voice-over-IP (VOIP) phone numbers to have the ability to take calls from wherever.
Some employers have stated that the work they churned out was adequate that had it not been unlawful to rent them, perhaps they’d have saved them. However most discovered the work product was poor to non-existent, and the North Korean pretend worker merely collected the paycheck till they have been lastly found and terminated. A whole bunch of thousands and thousands to billions of {dollars} are being “earned” and despatched again to North Korea to fund their unlawful nuclear weapons program. Who needs to be part of that?
New Webinar
We now have an upcoming webinar overlaying the specter of North Korean pretend workers. One covers our private story of how we unknowingly employed a North Korean worker and the way we detected and terminated them. You will discover information beneath:
Register by September eleventh @ 2:00 PM ET
Created and offered by Roger A. Grimes, Knowledge-Pushed Protection Evangelist for KnowBe4, it covers extra info on North Korean pretend workers and provides extra mitigations than yow will discover wherever else. There are dozens of strategies in each detecting and stopping pretend workers. It covers how one can forestall hiring a pretend worker and even how one can detect one if they’re already secreted away amongst your workforce.
There are a whole bunch, if not 1000’s of energetic North Korean pretend workers. Roger’s webinar will enable you finest forestall changing into yet one more firm that unknowingly employed a North Korean pretend worker and enable you replace your hiring processes, so it by no means occurs to you. You’ll not discover a higher useful resource.
Blissful hiring!