US e-commerce giant Amazon said it had blocked more than 1,800 North Korean job applications. The applications were blocked because they were linked to a suspected North Korean IT company. AFP reports.
Amazon’s chief security officer Stephen Schmidt explained the reason for blocking the job applications. In a post on LinkedIn last week, he said that the applicants used fake or stolen IDs to apply for jobs in the IT sector. Their goal was to fund North Korea’s weapons program.
The number of such applications at Amazon has increased by about 30% in the past year. In this case, applicants usually use US-based ‘laptop farms’.
A laptop farm refers to some US-based computers that can be controlled from North Korea or any other country via the Internet.
Amazon’s security chief, Schmidt, said the problem “is not just at Amazon, but is likely widespread across the tech industry.” Some telltale signs of North Korean workers include misspelled phone numbers and fake educational credentials, Schmidt said.
In July, an Arizona woman was sentenced to eight years in prison for helping North Koreans get jobs at about 300 U.S. companies. The scheme generated $17 million in illegal revenue, much of it funneled to North Korean funds.
Last year, Seoul’s intelligence agency warned that North Korean spies were using LinkedIn to try to gather information about South Korean defense workers by posing as employers.
