North Koreans got jobs at Fortune 500 companies to fund the nuclear weapons program

JULY 5, 2024 5:48 PM ET
HEARD ON ALL THINGS CONSIDERED
Jenna McLaughlin

The U.S. government and private sector are trying to solve a thorny problem. North Korean IT workers and hackers are infiltrating Fortune 500 companies to fund the regime's nuclear weapons program.

Transcript
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MCLAUGHLIN: Jenna McLaughlin - nice to meet you.

I wanted to talk to Dr. Jung Pak, the deputy assistant secretary of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, to get to the bottom of a crazy story. The State Department first put out an advisory about IT workers from the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, or DPRK for short, infiltrating top U.S. companies back in 2022. Now they're offering up to $5 million for information on the sprawling operation. Dr. Pak is a former CIA analyst. She literally wrote the book on North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. And she had a lot to say about this trend.

PAK: Yes, we have seen the DPRK engage in cyber-related activities, and DPRK IT workers is something that we focus on. As we know, during the pandemic, everybody went to their digital platforms, everybody went online, and that was also an opportunity for the DPRK to also go online.

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