ST. LOUIS (KMOX) - The St. Louis FBI Field office has seized 17 domains it says were being used by bad intentioned information technology workers.
Special Agent in Charge Jay Greenberg says businesses need to harden their defenses and do some vetting, such as conduct video sessions with potential I-T workers.
He adds, companies need to be 100-percent confident the address and the person they are turning their network over to, are in fact, one in the same. Greenberg says "I think that companies are working very hard to be responsible and making sure that they're protecting their infrastructure. For every single company every decision related to security, unless they are security consulting company or a company that provides security, it's not really their core business."
Greenberg isn't saying companies have not been responsibly executing their security function.....but there may be more out there for them to consider that could represent a threat to their company.
St. Louis FBI
Greenberg tells KMOX there is another aspect of this scheme. "Where some of these remote I-T workers in North Korea are using real people's real identities and claiming to be them. So, they may get ahold of personal identifiable information for somebody here in the United States and then use that as their identity, but simply set up a different payment mechanism or separate website that would be associated with a real person that which the real person has no access or knowledge of. Some cases, the first time that victim is notified is when they receive a tax form from the U.S. government that they owe taxes on some of their income. So, we would just encourage your average citizen to take all of the protections that you can with your identity. and if you do think your identity has been stolen or maybe used in another way, do everything in your own power to help and be your best advocate through the whole process."
If anyone believes they are a victim of that kind of crime or they think they might be used, you can always call 1-800-Call-FBI, or loge a complaint at ic3.gov
St. Louis FBI
