Remote Work Is Convenient for Employees…and North Korean Scammers

WSJ Tech News Briefing

The Wall Street Journal

News, Tech News

4.6 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 30 May 2025

⏱️ 12 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Jobs that allow employees to work from home have allowed for more flexibility. But in the quest to achieve a better work-life balance, we’ve helped open the door for hackers looking to capitalize on America’s workforce. Bob McMillan covers computer security, hackers, and privacy for the Wall Street Journal. He joins host Victoria Craig to discuss how laptop farms have allowed North Korean scammers to rake in hundreds of millions of dollars to the sanctioned country. Sign up for the WSJ's free Technology newsletter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Marketers, you know that feeling when your content just works, when you crush a viral trend before 10 a.m?
0:07.5	That's contentful. Dynamic content made blissfully simple.
0:11.7	Contentful helps you create and launch personalized experiences instantly across any digital channel, no limits, no stress, only possibilities. Come get the feels at contentful.com.
0:25.2	Hey, T&B listeners, before we get started, heads up. We're going to be asking you a question at the top
0:30.2	of each show for the next few weeks. Our goal here at Tech News Briefing is to keep you updated with the
0:35.2	latest headlines and trends on all things tech.
0:38.1	Now we want to know more about you, what you like about the show, and what more you'd like to
0:42.8	hear from us. So our question this week is, how often do you want new episodes? And how long do you
0:49.3	want them to be? Do you want shorter shows more often or longer shows less frequently? If you're listening on Spotify,
0:56.7	look for our poll under the episode description, or you can send us an email to TNB at WSJ.com.
1:03.4	Now on to the show.
1:07.4	Welcome to Tech News Briefing. It's Friday, May 30th. I'm Victoria Craig for the Wall Street Journal.
1:13.4	Remote jobs have become common for workers and industries across America. They make the work-life
1:18.5	balance easier for employees, but they've also allowed countries like North Korea to infiltrate
1:24.7	U.S. companies with the help of everyday Americans.
1:28.3	Today, we're taking a deep dive into an intricate scam involving illegal paychecks and stolen data.
1:37.2	A scam that the FBI says involves thousands of North Korean workers
1:41.3	has brought hundreds of millions of dollars a year into the country.
1:45.3	It's a place where international sanctions have frozen the flow of funds, so the country has
1:49.5	gotten creative in its quest for cash, and it's capitalized on some of America's remote
1:54.4	work opportunities to start laptop farms in states across the U.S. Bob McMillan covers computer security, hackers, and privacy for the Wall Street Journal.
2:04.1	Bob, I'm going to guess that the phrase laptop farm is not a familiar one for most of our listeners.
	...

Transcript will be available on the free plan in 1 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The Wall Street Journal, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of The Wall Street Journal and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.