Amazon Blocks 1,800 Suspected North Korean IT Applicants Since April

Amazon has blocked more than 1,800 suspected North Korean applicants from remote information technology positions since April 2024, as operatives from the Democratic People's Republic of Korea seek to secure jobs and channel earnings to the regime's weapons programs.

Stephen Schmidt, the company's chief security officer, disclosed the figure in a LinkedIn post last week, noting a 27 percent increase in such applications each quarter throughout 2024. The applicants, primarily targeting high-demand roles in artificial intelligence and machine learning, use stolen or fabricated identities to apply for positions at U.S.-based firms. Schmidt explained that the operatives often hijack LinkedIn profiles of legitimate software engineers, sometimes paying account owners for access, to lend credibility to their submissions.

To mask their locations, the applicants rely on "laptop farms," networks of computers stationed in the United States that are controlled remotely from North Korea. These setups allow internet traffic to appear local, evading initial geographic checks. Amazon employs a combination of artificial intelligence algorithms and human oversight to detect the fraud. The AI...