Look for verifiable inconsistencies across an applicant’s identity, interview, contact details, equipment delivery, payment information, and account activity—not nationality, accent, education, or any single behavior. FBI guidance describes schemes involving false or stolen identities, misrepresented locations, interview proxies, and U.S.-based facilitators who receive or configure company devices. These indicators warrant careful verification; none alone proves that a person is a North Korean IT worker.
What the warning signs can—and cannot—tell you
North Korean IT worker schemes can involve people posing as remote applicants or contractors to gain employment and generate revenue for the North Korean regime. The FBI says identities and locations may be misrepresented, and U.S.-based facilitators may receive company equipment or help enable remote access. The UK Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation (OFSI) says the schemes affect firms in the UK, US, and elsewhere; workers operate primarily from Russia and China, as well as other regions. FBI guidance and OFSI guidance describe a cross-border threat, not a profile that can reliably be inferred from a candidate’s background.
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Use a consistent process for remote hires and investigate combinations of specific, checkable discrepancies. A sparse professional profile, a request to change a delivery address, or an unusual login may have an innocent explanation. Treat such details as prompts to verify through appropriate, lawful methods—not as a basis for labeling or rejecting someone on their own.
Identity and application inconsistencies
- Contact information reused across applications: The FBI’s January 23, 2025 update reports phone numbers—including VoIP numbers—and email addresses reused on resumes attributed to different applicants. Cross-check contact details against other applications in your HR system and ask applicants to resolve discrepancies directly. FBI, January 23, 2025
- Resume and profile details do not align: Compare employment dates, roles, education, and claimed location across the resume and professional profiles. FBI/IC3 guidance also flags multiple profiles for one identity with different photos, or profiles without a photo. These details merit follow-up, but online profiles can be incomplete or inconsistent for legitimate reasons. FBI/IC3, October 3, 2023
- Basic history is difficult to explain consistently: Ask role-relevant questions about claimed work and education history, including location, and compare the answers with application records. Do not treat attendance at an Asian institution, nationality, ethnicity, or language as evidence of wrongdoing.
Interview and identity handoff
The FBI said on January 23, 2025, that North Korean IT workers had used AI and face-swapping technology during video job interviews to obscure their identities; the guidance also describes interview proxies. A video call by itself does not establish that the person on screen is the person whose documents are later used—or the person doing the work.
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- Ask the same job-related questions and use the same identity-verification standards for remote candidates generally.
- Follow up when a candidate cannot or will not appear on camera, gives inconsistent answers about work history or location, or when appearance, time, or location details do not match across interactions. These are possible indicators in FBI/IC3 guidance, not proof.
- Compare the identity checked during the interview with onboarding records and the person performing the work over time. FBI/IC3 guidance describes showing identity documents during video verification and in-person steps where feasible; choose methods appropriate and lawful for your jurisdiction.
The FBI’s January 2025 guidance recommends identity verification during interviewing, onboarding, and employment—not just a single check at the start.
Device delivery, addresses, and payment changes
Confirm independently where company equipment will be delivered. The FBI warns that U.S.-based facilitators may accept laptops, configure remote access, and reship devices overseas; FBI/IC3 guidance identifies freight-forwarding addresses and addresses that change rapidly after hiring as indicators. A mismatch between the verified worker’s address and the shipping destination should trigger confirmation through a trusted channel before shipment.
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Apply the same scrutiny to requests to change payment accounts or platforms, use an alternate payment arrangement, or receive repeated prepayments. FBI/IC3 guidance lists payment-account changes and prepayment requests among possible indicators, while the FBI advises staff to notice changes to onboarding address and payment information. An unrelated offer to receive work equipment or packages in exchange for a share of proceeds is another facilitator-recruitment warning the FBI describes. FBI/IC3 indicators and FBI guidance provide further detail.
Login, remote-access, and data activity
Monitor whether account and device behavior fits the person’s approved role and work location. The FBI’s January 2025 recommendations call attention to multiple logins to one account in a short period from different countries, remote connections or remote desktop software where prohibited, and unusual access or data movement.
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- Review alerts for geographically inconsistent logins and investigate them with the worker and relevant IT records.
- Restrict accounts to the access required for the role. Limit local administrator rights and permissions to install remote desktop tools where they are not needed.
- Review unusual movement of data to shared drives, personal cloud accounts, or personal code repositories. A developer may have legitimate reasons to copy code, but large-scale copying can create significant theft risk; investigate context and intent rather than treating one event as conclusive.
These controls help detect activity and limit possible damage; they do not identify a person’s nationality or prove who is behind an account. FBI, January 23, 2025
A practical verification process for remote hires
- During hiring: Use consistent identity checks for remote applicants. Cross-check application details and contact information against other applications, then ask the applicant to explain specific discrepancies.
- At interview and onboarding: Verify that the person interviewed matches onboarding documentation and the person expected to perform the work. Do not rely on a video call alone; use appropriate, lawful verification steps for your organization and location.
- Before equipment shipment: Independently confirm the delivery address and verify changes through a trusted channel. If a staffing firm is involved, check that it has documented identity and background-check procedures and audit those procedures.
- During employment: Apply least privilege, restrict unauthorized remote-access tools, and monitor login anomalies, device use, and data movement. Recheck identity or work details when material discrepancies arise.
- Across teams: Train HR, hiring managers, IT/security staff, and development teams to recognize and escalate changes in identity, contact details, addresses, payment arrangements, interview consistency, and network activity.
- If you suspect a case: Follow your incident-response procedures, evaluate the assigned device and relevant network activity, and report promptly to the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3). Consult current FBI/IC3 instructions for reporting details. FBI/IC3 advisory
Account for jurisdiction and changing guidance
The reporting and sanctions context depends on where your organization operates. UK firms can consult OFSI’s guidance, published September 12, 2024, on the North Korean IT worker threat. US organizations should follow current FBI/IC3 guidance. The directly relevant FBI update cited here is dated January 23, 2025, so check the agency’s current alerts and reporting instructions when responding to a case.
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