- Seoul calls for strictness with identities, because "thousands of IT workers" from North Korea disguise themselves as citizens of other countries, and send their salaries in cryptocurrencies to Pyongyang.

The United States issued the same notice this year.

South Korea warns world not to hire North Korean spies as ICT workers

South Korea issued a warning against hiring North Korean ICT employees with disguised nationalities because North Korea uses such users as a source of foreign exchange earnings.

In the report, the ministries of Foreign Affairs, Unification, and Science and ICT called on local companies to strengthen personnel verification when recruiting workers at home and abroad, adding that a significant part of the revenue of such employees is targeted at North Korean missile development.

On the other hand, the notice points to the methods of identity theft by North Korean workers, from editing South Korean IDs with Photoshop to creating accounts on websites and searching for jobs, to paying foreigners to lend them their profiles on said platforms.

South Korean authorities called for caution, as hiring and paying North Korean undercover workers could happen anywhere and be in violation of national law.

By law, South Korean companies must obtain approval from the Ministry of Unification to hire North Korean employees in the ICT sector, and offenders could be subject to a maximum sentence of three years in prison or a fine of approximately 21,500 euros.

The South Korean government works with the United States to prevent North Korea from illegally obtaining profits (they are for the development of nuclear weapons and missiles through unauthorized cyber activities).

Recommendations for not hiring North Koreans

South Korea recommends that "if an account on a freelancing platform fits many of the characteristics listed below, the account may actually belong to North Korean workers":

• Log in to an account from multiple IP addresses in a relatively short period of time.
• Log in to multiple accounts on the same platform from one IP address.
• The user logs into his account throughout the day.
• The employee receives good recommendations and accumulates thousands of hours of work.
• The candidate uses the same or similar documents as those submitted by existing accounts.
• Another recommendation is to make video calls before signing contracts with independent programmers.

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