- Since April 2024, Amazon has blocked more than 1,800 orders coming from North Korea.
- Microsoft announces plans to hire North Korean workers at 300 US companies from 2020 to 2022
- Observing human behavior is a good start, and AI can help achieve even more.
Amazon said it has blocked more than 1,800 orders from North Korea since April 2024.
Stephen Schmidt, the company’s security director, wrote, “Their goal is generally simple: recruit, get paid, and use that pay to fund government weapons programs.” Post on LinkedIn,
The company used artificial intelligence and human review to eliminate “anomalies” and “geographic inconsistencies” and remove such applications. The number of North Korea-related apps detected has increased by 27% this year.
North Koreans are looking for jobs at big tech companies
Scams have included real developers in the US and Europe using fake or stolen identities to help companies work remotely, and new artificial intelligence tools have proven highly successful in bolstering their cases. Artificial intelligence and fake social media profiles are used to run apps, and deepfakes are used to (attempt to) pass video interviews.
But while Amazon can now use artificial intelligence to identify more fake apps, it’s becoming harder to detect as scammers use stolen credentials to take over unused LinkedIn accounts of real engineers.
The technology can help Amazon’s security team identify fake apps, but there are still few tell-tale signs for the human eye. For example, Schmidt says his research group often sees applicants citing lectures from universities that don’t offer the courses they apply for. You may also notice some formatting details, such as adding the international “+” symbol to the phone number.
Civil society organizations are urging victims of North Korea’s false accusations to contact the FBI and local law enforcement.
Amazon is not the only company facing this threat. Just six months ago Microsoft share Similar studies have shown that remote IT workers in North Korea use artificial intelligence to alter photographs, change faces on stolen IDs, edit job applications, and even use voice translation software.
Microsoft said that more than 300 US companies, including Fortune 500 companies, mistakenly hired these employees between 2020 and 2022.
Redmond’s report suggests monitoring unusual behavior such as using foreign IP addresses or VPNs, not being on camera at all during video calls and unusual working hours.
