5 plead guilty to laptop farm and ID theft scheme to land North Koreans US IT jobs

Five men have pleaded guilty to assisting North Koreans in obtaining remote IT jobs at US companies through fraudulent means, in violation of US law. The scheme, orchestrated by APT38 (also known as Lazarus), aimed to generate revenue for the North Korean regime and compromise the identities of US individuals. The men provided false or stolen identities, hosted laptops at various US locations to create the appearance of domestic work, and installed remote access software for the North Korean workers. The fraudulent employment schemes impacted over 136 US companies, generated $2.2 million for North Korea, and compromised the identities of 18 US persons.