The US has slapped sanctions on individuals and companies linked to a scheme that involves recruiting North Koreans to pose as American tech workers and help fund Kim Jong-un’s regime.
The US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control imposed penalties on a “malicious cyber actor” named Song Kum-hyok, who is accused of having ties with a hacking group linked to Pyongyang, as well as another individual and four companies based in Russia and North Korea.
Song allegedly facilitated an IT worker scheme where North Koreans and others working from China and Russia are given false American identities – often using information stolen from US citizens – to gain remote employment with US companies and generate revenue for North Korea.
The workers use “a variety of mainstream and industry-specific freelance contracting, payment, and social media and networking platforms,” the Treasury Department said in a statement.
The department also said that in some cases, the IT workers introduced malware into company networks.
Thousands of North Korean workers have been posing as nationals from other countries to infiltrate companies in the US and around the world, according to the US government.
