US Edition
Report Reveals North Korea's 100,000 Fake IT Workers Earn $500M a Year
A network of about 100,000 fake IT workers across 40 countries generates $500 million annually for North Korea, infiltrating Western companies and stealing sensitive data, researchers say.
- On March 18, 2026, Flare and IBM X-Force published a report citing US assessments that upwards of 100,000 North Koreans in 40 countries generate $500 million annually for Pyongyang.
- Researchers say the operation runs as a managed ecosystem of recruiters, facilitators, IT workers, and collaborators who use fake US identities to secure jobs, generating steady revenue for the regime.
- Nisos' undercover probe found at least 20 operatives who applied to 160,000 roles and observed about 40 devices on a Florida home network, 20 forming a laptop farm linked to DPRK VPNs.
- On Thursday, the U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned six individuals and two entities, while heightened enforcement over the past year charged at least ten alleged U.S.-based facilitators.
- In recent years analysts warn North Korea's ties with Chinese money laundering networks boost its cashout ability, the report notes the scheme helps evade sanctions and fund weapons and ballistic missile programs, while CrowdStrike reports a 220% rise in 2025 fraudulent employment incidents.
24 Articles
24 Articles
The $500 Million Heist: Your Best Remote Hire Might Not Exist—and Could Be Funding North Korea
They never miss a deadline and their code is perfect—but they aren’t who they say they are. Inside the state-sponsored operation embedding fake North Korean IT workers into Western companies to fund the Kim regime.
Deepfakes and an elite hacker school: How cybercrime is growing as a source of income for North Korea
China is the world’s leading promoter of cybercrime, according to all reports. But there is a small Asian country that is steadily gaining importance in this industry: North Korea. The hermetic state, strangled by trade embargoes, has found its main source of foreign currency in online criminal activity. Analysts agree that the structure of the hacker groups allegedly funded by Pyongyang is growing in complexity: specialized groups are being cre…
North Korea deployed 100,000 fake IT workers to infiltrate Western companies, making $500M a year for Kim Jong Un
According to cybersecurity firms Flare Research and IBM X-Force, North Korea is using a network of more than 100,000 hackers, developers, and IT operatives to infiltrate global companies, steal people's private data, and funnel hundreds of millions of dollars to the Kim Jong-Un regime.Read Entire Article
Globe Newswire
Business InsiderFlare and IBM X-Force Uncover the Infrastructure Behind North Korea’s Global IT Worker Fraud
MONTREAL, March 18, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Flare, the leader in Threat Exposure Management, today released new joint research with IBM X-Force, an elite global team of hackers, cyber defenders,
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