US security firm unwittingly hired apparent “nation-state” hacker from North Korea
KnowBe4, a US-based security vendor, revealed that it unwittingly hired a North Korean hacker who attempted to load malware into the company's network. KnowBe4 CEO and founder Stu Sjouwerman described the incident in a blog post yesterday, calling it a cautionary tale that was fortunately detected before causing any major problems.
"First of all: No illegal access was gained, and no data was lost, compromised, or exfiltrated on any KnowBe4 systems," Sjouwerman wrote. "This is not a data breach notification, there was none. See it as an organizational learning moment I am sharing with you. If it can happen to us, it can happen to almost anyone. Don't let it happen to you."
KnowBe4 said it was looking for a software engineer for its internal IT AI team. The firm hired a person who, it turns out, was from North Korea and was "using a valid but stolen US-based identity" and a photo that was "enhanced" by artificial intelligence. There is now an active FBI investigation amid suspicion that the worker is what KnowBe4's blog post called "an Insider Threat/Nation State Actor."
KnowBe4 operates in 11 countries and is headquartered in Florida. It provides security awareness training, including phishing security tests, to corporate customers. If you occasionally receive a fake phishing email from your employer, you might be working for a company that uses the KnowBe4 service to test its employees' ability to spot scams.
