North Korean hackers now hiring Europeans as interview fronts - this is getting out of hand

North Korean hackers now hiring Europeans as interview fronts - this is getting out of hand

So I've been following this really concerning trend that's been happening in the crypto space lately - North Korean hackers are getting way more sophisticated with their infiltration attempts. What's really wild is they're now hiring Europeans as fronts for job interviews, which is next level stuff.

There's this UK startup called Cheqd that had a crazy experience recently. They interviewed this developer who seemed perfect - European-based, knew his stuff, spoke great English. But when he came back for the second round with a live coding test, suddenly his accent was completely different (way more Asian), his internet was lagging, and conveniently his camera wouldn't work. The kicker? When they reviewed the screen recording, they caught him switching between tabs with Korean characters. Like seriously, how sloppy can you get?

The CEO Fraser Edwards said this wasn't even a one-off - they've seen about five similar attempts just this past year. And apparently this whole "hire a European front person" thing is becoming the new standard playbook because companies were getting too good at spotting the original fake applications.

What's really scary is the numbers behind this. Over $2.2 billion was stolen from crypto platforms in 2024 alone, and get this - 61% of that (around $1.34 billion) was attributed to North Korean state actors. They're basically funding their entire operation through these crypto heists, and infiltrating companies is becoming their preferred method over direct hacking attempts.

I've been reading about this recruiter Owen Healy who's been dealing with these fake applications for years. He says the classic tells used to be pretty obvious - you could trip them up by asking about local culture or current events from wherever they claimed to live. Apparently tons of them claim to be from Toronto for some reason lol. But now with these European proxies, those old tricks aren't working as well.

The whole situation is making remote hiring so much harder for everyone. Companies are having to implement way more verification processes, and there's this risk of legitimate Asian candidates getting discriminated against just because employers are paranoid about North Korean infiltrators. It's creating this really toxic environment where everyone's suspicious of everyone else.

And it's not just the North Korea thing - the whole job market is getting flooded with AI-generated applications now. Recruiters are complaining about getting swamped with ChatGPT-written resumes that are obvious copy-paste jobs. People are claiming skills they don't have, lying about language abilities, and generally making the whole process way more complicated than it needs to be.

The irony is there are even startups now specifically designed to help people cheat in interviews. This company Cluely just raised $5.3 million to basically help people fake their way through job interviews and sales calls. Their founder literally made a promo video showing how to use it to fake interests on a date, which is just... wow.

All this tech is obviously going to make it even easier for North Korean IT workers to bypass the usual detection methods. If someone can use AI to fake being interested in sports or local food, then the old "pop culture test" approach is pretty much dead.

What's really frustrating is how this is affecting legitimate job seekers. Companies like Cheqd are basically saying they might not even post jobs publicly anymore - they're just going to hire through existing networks and referrals. Which is great if you're already connected, but if you're trying to break into the industry or don't have those connections, you're basically screwed.

The whole thing feels like we're in this arms race where the bad actors keep getting more sophisticated, and everyone else has to deal with increasingly paranoid and complicated hiring processes. It's making an already difficult job market even worse for people who are just trying to find legitimate work in crypto.

Anyone else in the industry dealing with this stuff? I'm curious if other companies are seeing similar patterns or if they've found any effective ways to screen for this without making the process terrible for real candidates.