Amazon has blocked 1,800 fraudulent North Korean apps. 'Laptop farms' identified behind profiles
The American giant Amazon has announced that it has blocked more than 1,800 applications from North Koreans, while Pyongyang is accused of evading UN sanctions by sending IT specialists abroad to earn money and launder funds, writes AFP.
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Stephen Schmidt, the head of Amazon's security department, said last week in a post on the LinkedIn social network that the North Koreans “looking for remote IT jobs at companies around the world, especially in the United States,” according to Agerpres, which cites the international press agency.
According to him, the company registered an increase of almost a third of these applications in the last year.
Behind these profiles are laptop farms (“laptop farms”): discreet offices full of computers physically located in the United States, connected to the Internet through American providers, but controlled from another country, explained Stephen Schmidt.
According to the head of the company's security department, the problem “it's not just limited to Amazon“, but “probably occurs on a large scale throughout the sector'.
To detect fraudulent applications, Schmidt says they look for incorrectly formatted phone numbers and dubious degrees.
In July, an American woman was sentenced to more than eight years in prison for driving a “laptop farm” that allowed North Koreans to get remote jobs at more than 300 US IT companies.
The scheme generated more than 17 million dollars for her and North Korea, according to the authorities.
“They finance their dangerous weapons program”
In 2024, another American was arrested for helping North Koreans get jobs at British and American companies.
“North Korea has sent thousands of highly skilled IT professionals around the world to defraud companies and evade international sanctions in order to continue funding its dangerous weapons program”prosecutor Henry Leventis said at the time.
Last year, South Korean intelligence services warned that North Korean agents were using LinkedIn to pose as recruiters, approaching South Koreans in the defense sector for information.
Under UN sanctions, North Korean workers are prohibited from earning money abroad.
A 2024 report by the US-based organization 38 North says that North Korean IT specialists – hiding their nationalities – have already obtained contracts to work on animation projects run by Japanese and US companies such as Amazon and HBO Max.
