A North Korean imposter was uncovered, working as a sysadmin at Amazon U.S., after their keystroke input lag raised suspicions with security specialists at the online retail giant. Normally, a U.S.-based remote worker’s computer would send keystroke data within tens of milliseconds. This suspicious individual’s keyboard lag was “more than 110 milliseconds,” reports Bloomberg.
Amazon is commendably proactive in its pursuit of impostors, according to the source report. The news site talked with Amazon’s Chief Security Officer, Stephen Schmidt, about this fascinating new case of North Koreans trying to infiltrate U.S. organizations to raise hard currency for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), and sometimes indulge in espionage and/or sabotage.
I’m never quite sure how to feel about this. On one hand, if the person just wants to make some money and they’re doing the job, why bother them. On the other hand though, I know that anybody who has consistent access to an internet connection in North Korea is almost certainly working for the benefit of the great leader and they aren’t actually seeing any money or benefit for themselves. I just hate that the citizens of North Korea have to suffer and be punished because of their asswipe of a leader.
These people are definitely not there just to make some money. And whatever money they make will be used to prop up the genocidal regime.
They’re also a security threat. Any opportunity to exfiltrate potentially profitable or leverageable data will be taken. I’d bet they’re used to sniff out vulnerabilities for ransomware attacks too. I definitley identify and agree with the healthy sympathy (I guess empathy if you’re in the states, our leader more than qualifies as an asswipe) for the citizens of North Korea
