Thousands of remote IT workers sent wages to North Korea

[pixy0stix]

apnews.com/article/north-korea-weapons-program-it-workers-f3df7c120522b0581db5c0b9682ebc9b

FBI: Thousands of remote IT workers sent wages to North Korea to help fund weapons program

[onomatopoeia]

I don't even know what to say about this other than each paragraph in this article progressively got worse and that overall this seems really, really bad. They didn't just send money but also information? And kept their access open to the systems for future schemes?

[Velar Fricative]

"Greenberg said the workers used various techniques to make it look like they were working in the U.S., including paying Americans to use their home Wi-Fi connections."

Oooooooh boy. Just goes to show good ol' American civilians can become assets to any country if you pay them for something as easy as letting someone use their Wi-Fi. Especially when inflation is as bad as it is.

[onomatopoeia]

Oct 19, 2023 10:06:33 GMT -5 Velar Fricative said:

"Greenberg said the workers used various techniques to make it look like they were working in the U.S., including paying Americans to use their home Wi-Fi connections."

Oooooooh boy. Just goes to show good ol' American civilians can become assets to any country if you pay them for something as easy as letting someone use their Wi-Fi. Especially when inflation is as bad as it is.

I'm really curious as to how exactly this played out.  Did these people (the Americans) realize what was happening and actively agree to it (like they were sympathizers or something), or were they scammed into it somehow?   I don't know enough about Wifi connections to even begin to guess how this could happen either purposely or inadvertently.  

[Deleted]

Oct 19, 2023 11:20:54 GMT -5 onomatopoeia said:

Oct 19, 2023 10:06:33 GMT -5 Velar Fricative said:

"Greenberg said the workers used various techniques to make it look like they were working in the U.S., including paying Americans to use their home Wi-Fi connections."

Oooooooh boy. Just goes to show good ol' American civilians can become assets to any country if you pay them for something as easy as letting someone use their Wi-Fi. Especially when inflation is as bad as it is.

I'm really curious as to how exactly this played out.  Did these people (the Americans) realize what was happening and actively agree to it (like they were sympathizers or something), or were they scammed into it somehow?   I don't know enough about Wifi connections to even begin to guess how this could happen either purposely or inadvertently.  

This is also my question. Is this some kind of hacking situation?

[pixy0stix]

If they were paid they weren't hacked.

[cap]

Damn. That's scary.

[sonrisa]

Oct 19, 2023 13:35:27 GMT -5 pixy0stix said:

If they were paid they weren't hacked.

They weren't hacked. But they didn't necessarily know to whom they were selling it.

It would be sloppy if NK went out of its way to set up the workers with fake information and documents at other steps of the way and then blatantly sought Americans to sell wifi to NK. I would be surprised if they had any idea of who was using it.

[aurora]

Add me to the list of people who don't understand how this worked.

When they say they used Americans wifi, does that mean something like VPN-ing to US houses from North Korea? Or having North Korean sympathizers physically here in the US using wifi here, earning money, and then sending it back? Because in the latter case I just don't understand things like how having video on during the interview would make a difference, and furthermore if they were physically in the US they wouldn't really need to use someone else's wifi.