US dismantles laptop farm used by undercover North Korean IT workers

benguild | 73 points | 10mon ago | www.bleepingcomputer.com

kevdoran|10mon ago

Any thoughts on how to report requests to do things like this?

I've had several emails from strangers over the past month asking to use my identity (i.e. Upwork profile), setup a report laptop, and "collaborate".

Until now I've just ignore them or mark them spam.

alephnerd|10mon ago

https://www.cisa.gov/report

kevdoran|10mon ago

ty :)

ZoomZoomZoom|10mon ago

> the North Korean IT workers who used Knoot's laptop farm generated revenue for North Korea's nuclear weapons program

Such an off-handed manner of presenting a really strong accusation! How did they do it exactly, directly, or just being citizens and paying taxes?

alephnerd|10mon ago

Because they're part of APT45 which has been documented doing this as part of the North Korean military for over a decade now [0][1][2]

You can also read the DoJ press release if you want [3], but you'll probably be blocked by their WAF as you're based in Russia

[0] - https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/threat-intelligence/apt...

[1] - https://duo.com/decipher/north-korean-apt45-goes-for-the-mon...

[2] - https://malpedia.caad.fkie.fraunhofer.de/actor/apt45

[3] - https://www.justice.gov/usao-mdtn/pr/department-disrupts-nor...

ZoomZoomZoom|10mon ago

Thanks for the info. My point was, presenting the context is the job of the reporter.

> You can also read the DoJ press release if you want

It doesn't mention APT45, fwiw.

> but you'll probably be blocked by their WAF as you're based in Russia

Your HN user locator is off. Even if it weren't, disclosing physical location of a person is bad manners, at the very least.

AlexeyBelov|10mon ago

> you'll probably be blocked by their WAF as you're based in Russia

Where did that come from? Can you elaborate on this? I'm sensing "ha, you must be ruzzian to even ask that, and you obviously do that in bad faith".

Sorry if I'm off-base.

voxic11|10mon ago

North Korea claims to be the worlds only tax free state. But you are right, in effect citizens do pay tax, its just called "socialist income accounting" instead.