▲ This composite image provided by Yonhap News TV shows North Korea's IT and nuclear weapons development programs. (PHOTO NOT FOR SALE) (Yonhap)

(LEAD) NK IT workers-S Korea alert

(LEAD) S. Korea issues advisory against hiring N.K. IT workers with disguised nationalities

(ATTN: UPDATES with details in last paras; ADDS photo, byline)

By Chang Dong-woo

SEOUL, Dec. 8 (Yonhap) -- South Korea on Thursday issued an interagency advisory against the hiring of North Korean information technology (IT) workers with disguised nationalities amid reports that the country is using them as a source of foreign currency earnings.

In the advisory, the foreign, unification and ICT ministries called on local companies to strengthen background checks in recruiting IT workers at home and abroad, adding that a significant portion of earnings by those workers is channeled into the North's nuclear and missile development.

The advisory details identity theft methods by North Korean IT workers, such as photoshopping images of South Korean driver's licenses to create accounts for job searching websites in the South or paying foreigners to borrow their accounts on such online platforms.

Some cases involved North Korean workers approaching foreign freelance workers to work together and share the earnings on projects commissioned by South Korean companies.

Many of such workers are believed to belong to North Korean organizations subject to United Nations Security Council sanctions, including the Machine-Building Industry Department of the Workers' Party and the Ministry of National Defence, it added.

The government called for caution, as recruiting and paying disguised North Korean workers could be in violation of related domestic legislation as well as the U.N.-led sanctions against the North.

[https://youtu.be/fzY9J98vnPc]

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