editorially independent. We may make money when you click on links
to our partners.
Learn More
A barely perceptible delay in keystrokes was all it took for Amazon to uncover a nation-state infiltrator hiding in plain sight.
What appeared to be a U.S.-based remote systems administrator was, in reality, a North Korean IT worker accessing Amazon’s network from halfway around the world — revealed by a latency gap of just 110 milliseconds.
“If we hadn’t been looking for the DPRK workers, we would not have found them,” said Stephen Schmidt, Amazon Chief Security Officer.
The Growing Threat of State-Backed IT Fraud
This incident highlights a growing risk for organizations embracing remote work: nation-state actors exploiting global hiring pipelines to gain legitimate access to corporate environments.
North Korea, heavily sanctioned and isolated, has turned remote IT fraud into a revenue stream — one that directly funds its weapons programs while creating insider threats for companies large and small.
Keystroke Latency Exposes Remote Impersonation
The case emerged earlier this year when Amazon’s security monitoring flagged unusual behavior on a newly issued corporate laptop assigned to a systems administrator.
While the device was physically located in Arizona, investigators noticed command inputs reaching Amazon’s Seattle infrastructure more slowly than expected.
For U.S.-based workers, keystrokes should register in well under 100 milliseconds. These consistently exceeded 110 milliseconds — a subtle but telling indicator of overseas access.
According to Bloomberg, Amazon determined the laptop was being remotely controlled, with network traffic traced back to China, a common relay point used by North Korean operators.
Amazon quickly confirmed the individual was part of a broader DPRK IT worker scheme and terminated access within days.
Amazon says it has blocked more than 1,800 North Korean hiring attempts since April 2024, with attempts rising 27% quarter-over-quarter.
Tactics Used in Remote IT Worker Fraud
The IT workers typically operate through layered deception.
They apply for remote roles using fabricated identities, often claiming ties to obscure overseas consultancies that are difficult to verify.
Once hired — frequently through third-party contractors — they rely on U.S.-based laptop proxies who receive company hardware and provide remote access.
In this case, Amazon’s endpoint security tools detected the remote control behavior, while analysts cross-referenced the worker’s résumé with known DPRK patterns.
Linguistic red flags also surfaced, including awkward English phrasing and incorrect use of articles such as “a” and “the,” recognized as indicators in similar cases.
Importantly, the compromised laptop did not have access to sensitive systems.
This allowed Amazon’s security team to observe the attacker’s behavior rather than immediately cutting off access — helping confirm attribution and refine detection methods for future cases.
Mitigating Insider and Impersonation Risks
Nation-state actors and organized fraud rings are increasingly exploiting remote hiring models to gain legitimate access to corporate environments.
Traditional screening and security controls are no longer sufficient to detect sophisticated impersonation and proxy-worker schemes.
Defending against these threats requires a coordinated approach that blends identity assurance, technical detection, and cross-functional awareness.
- Strengthen identity verification and background checks for remote hires using live identity proofing, geolocation validation, and periodic re-verification.
- Deploy advanced endpoint and behavioral monitoring to detect anomalies such as keystroke latency, remote-control tooling, and sudden shifts in user behavior.
- Enforce strict device and access controls by binding corporate laptops to verified identities, restricting access by geography or ASN, and blocking persistent remote desktop use.
- Apply least-privilege access and segmentation for employees and contractors, including just-in-time privileges and tighter controls over third-party staffing vendors.
- Correlate HR, identity, endpoint, and network telemetry to proactively hunt for insider threats and organized impersonation patterns.
- Train HR, IT, and security teams together to recognize both technical and non-technical indicators of fraud, including résumé reuse, language inconsistencies, and abnormal work patterns.
Together, these steps strengthen cyber resilience by continuously validating trust, minimizing exposure, and improving detection and response to insider and impersonation risks.
Remote Work and Cross-Border Cyber Abuse
Amazon’s discovery reflects a broader pattern of abuse tied to remote work models. U.S. authorities have disrupted multiple “laptop farming” operations associated with North Korea.
One large-scale fraud scheme resulted in prison sentences for the U.S.-based facilitators.
Similar techniques have also been observed in activity linked to Russia, Iran, and China, where remote access and proxy infrastructure are used to obscure location and circumvent standard security controls.
As remote impersonation evolves, organizations also face growing challenges in detecting synthetic identities and deepfakes that blur the line between fraud and legitimate users.
