Incident·WS-0041·Jun 2025·disclosed Jun 30, 2025 (15 days later)·in the wild·Deepfakes & fraud

North Korean IT workers use AI to get hired at Western firms

DPRK (Jasper Sleet / Famous Chollima) / AI face-swap, voice changers, Claude, ChatGPT

40/100
WS-3 Serious
Harm score 60, signal score 16. Autonomy: tool (a person misused it). How the scores work.
Harm 3/5
damage actually done
Reach 3/5
who was affected
Autonomy 0/4
how much the AI did on its own
Novelty 2/5
how new the behavior was
Permanence 3/5
how hard it is to undo

Microsoft reported North Korean remote IT workers using AI to alter photos in stolen identity documents, polish résumés and experiment with voice-changing software to win jobs at Western firms; Anthropic's August report found operatives relying on Claude to pass interviews and do the work. Wages fund the regime in violation of sanctions.

Damage

thousands of workers placed; one DOJ-indicted scheme earned >= $866,255 from 10 of >= 64 U.S. companies; Microsoft suspended 3,000 accounts

The capability behind it

Sources

Microsoft, second source. Addition. Scheme predates LLMs; AI is an accelerant. Ongoing 2024-2025; date reflects Microsoft disclosure.

Factor ratings and the score are this index’s judgments by a published formula; facts, dates and figures come from the linked sources. Where a lawsuit is pending, the summary reports allegations, not findings.