As per a cross-departmental public advisory issue released on Friday, private firms are advised to do proper due diligence before hiring freelancers. North Korea has often used such illegal and immoral tactics, as per the advisory. The country is also home to the infamous hacker group called Lazarus.
The advisory highlights important red flags for private firms to look out for. This would hopefully help them avoid North Korean workers. The departments think that North Korean workers pose possible risks to firms like theft of intellectual property, data, and funds. This could be one of the petty ways the North Koreans evade sanctions.
Since the pandemic, there has been a notable increase in the freelance job market. The growth of crypto has also contributed to the job market, creating more attractive IT-based jobs.
These workers, often with an agenda to hurt the US, use virtual private networks (VPNs) to purchase third-country IP addresses and identities. To identify such workers, listed more red flags before hiring are educational history, work history, contact information, etc.
The advisory said that cryptocurrency payment requests from Chinese bank accounts were one of the major red flags listed in the advisory.