- Amazon has blocked more than 1,800 suspected DPRK apps since April 2024
- Microsoft says 300 US companies hired workers from the DPRK between 2020 and 2022
- Monitoring human behavior is a good place to start, AI can help even more
Amazon has blocked more than 1,800 apps suspected of being North Korean from joining the company since April 2024, it revealed.
“Their goal is generally simple: get hired, get paid, and reinvest salaries to fund the regime’s weapons programs,” the company’s security chief, Stephen Schmidt, wrote in a LinkedIn post.
The company uses artificial intelligence and human verification to eliminate “anomalies” and “geographic inconsistencies” to exclude such apps, with detections of DPRK-affiliated apps increasing by 27% this year.
North Korean nationals try to find jobs at big tech companies
The scams involve real developers using fake or stolen identities to apply for remote jobs at U.S. and European companies, and emerging AI tools are proving highly successful in bolstering their arguments. AI and fake social media profiles are used to boost apps, while deepfakes are even used to (try to) pass video interviews.
However, even though Amazon has successfully leveraged AI to identify even more fake apps, detection is becoming increasingly difficult with scammers hijacking the unused LinkedIn accounts of real engineers via stolen credentials.
Even though technology helps Amazon’s security team identify fake apps, there are some signs that are still obvious to the human eye. For example, Schmidt says the team often sees applicants citing training at a university that doesn’t offer the claimed course. Some formatting details, like adding the international “+” symbol to phone numbers, also stand out.
CSO urges victims of false applications from the DPRK to report them to the FBI and local law enforcement.
Amazon is not the only company facing these threats. Just six months ago, Microsoft shared similar findings, noting that remote North Korean IT workers were using AI to enhance their photos, swap faces on stolen IDs, polish their job applications, and even use voice-altering software.
According to Microsoft, more than 300 U.S. companies, including Fortune 500 companies, unknowingly hired such workers between 2020 and 2022.
The Redmond report suggests watching for strange behavior, like using foreign IP addresses and VPNs, never appearing on camera during video calls, and working strange hours.
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