The U.S. Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) on Tuesday sanctioned a member of a North Korean hacking group called Andariel for their role in the infamous remote information technology (IT) worker scheme.
The Treasury said Song Kum Hyok, a 38-year-old North Korean national with an address in the Chinese province of Jilin, enabled the fraudulent operation by using foreign-hired IT workers to seek remote employment with U.S. companies and planning to split income with them.
Between 2022 and 2023, Song is alleged to have used the identities of U.S. people, including their names, addresses, and Social Security numbers, to craft aliases for the hired workers, who then used these personas to pose as U.S. nationals looking for remote jobs in the country.
The development comes days after the U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) announced sweeping actions targeting the North Korean information technology (IT) worker scheme, leading to the arrest of one individual and the seizure of 29 financial accounts, 21 fraudulent websites, and nearly 200 computers.
Sanctions have also been levied against a Russian national and four entities involved in a Russia-based IT worker scheme that contracted and hosted North Koreans to pull off the malicious operation. This includes -
- Gayk Asatryan, who used his Russia-based companies Asatryan LLC and Fortuna LLC to employ North Korean IT workers
- Korea Songkwang Trading General Corporation, which signed a deal with Asatryan to dispatch up to 30 IT workers to work in Russia for Asatryan LLC
- Korea Saenal Trading Corporation, which signed a deal with Asatryan to dispatch up to 50 IT workers to work in Russia for Fortuna LLC
The sanctions mark the first time a threat actor linked to Andariel, a sub-cluster within the Lazarus Group, has been tied to the IT worker scheme, which has become a crucial illicit revenue stream for the sanctions-hit nation. The Lazarus Group is assessed to be affiliated with the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) Reconnaissance General Bureau (RGB).
"While the Treasury's announcement marks a formal public association of the Andariel (APT45) hacking group with North Korea's remote IT worker operation, the connection reflects a much broader and long-running pattern," Michael "Barni" Barnhart, Principal i3 Insider Risk Investigator at DTEX, told The Hacker News.
"When examined in the context of DPRK cyber activity as a whole, this is not an entirely new development. The FBI's 2024 indictment of Rim Jong Hyok highlights early overlaps between malware development, and the cybercrime financial operations tied to the funding of their North Korean espionage true efforts."
Barnhart also pointed out that Hyok's July 2024 indictment serves as a reminder of how revenue generated from conducting ransomware attacks (or some other means) fuels North Korea's broader intelligence and military objectives.
"Much like Rim, Song's activity in both the APT45 organization and the overlaps with DPRK's IT Workers, highlights the grander overall threat picture when looking at DPRK," Barnhart said.
"There appears to be a progression among North Korean cyber operators, with individuals moving between groups and roles. As outlined in DTEX's recent report on the DPRK cyber syndicate, APT45 in particular has been a pioneer in integrating IT workers into state-sponsored operations. Their tactics may have been the catalyst for the regime, using IT workers not only for financial gain but also as operational assets in broader campaigns."
The action "underscores the importance of vigilance on the DPRK's continued efforts to clandestinely fund its WMD and ballistic missile programs," said Deputy Secretary of the Treasury Michael Faulkender.
"Treasury remains committed to using all available tools to disrupt the Kim [Jong Un] regime's efforts to circumvent sanctions through its digital asset theft, attempted impersonation of Americans, and malicious cyber attacks"
The IT worker scheme, also tracked as Nickel Tapestry, Wagemole, and UNC5267, involves North Korean actors using a mix of stolen and fictitious identities to gain employment with U.S. companies as remote IT workers with the goal of drawing a regular salary that's then funneled back to the regime through intricate cryptocurrency transactions.
The insider threat is just one of the many methods embraced by Pyongyang to generate revenue for the country. Data compiled by TRM Labs shows that North Korea is behind approximately $1.6 billion out of the total $2.1 billion stolen as a result of 75 cryptocurrency hacks and exploits in the first half of 2025 alone -- mainly driven by the blockbuster heist of Bybit earlier this year.
The vast majority of steps taken to counter the threat, ranging from sanctions to arrests to laptop farm seizures, has ostensibly come from U.S. authorities, but Barnhart told the publication that other countries are also stepping up and taking similar actions and driving awareness to a broader audience.
"This is a complex, transnational issue with many moving parts, so international collaboration and open communication are extremely useful," Barnhart said.
"For an example of some of the complexities with this issue, a North Korean IT worker may be physically located in China, employed by a front company posing as a Singapore-based firm, contracted to a European vendor delivering services to clients in the United States. That level of operational layering highlights just how important joint investigations and intelligence sharing are in effectively countering this activity."
"The good news is that awareness has grown significantly in recent years, and we're now seeing the fruits of that labor. These initial awareness steps are part of a broader global shift toward recognizing and actively disrupting these threats."
News of the sanctions dovetail with reports that the North Korea-aligned group tracked as Kimsuky (aka APT-C-55) is using a backdoor called HappyDoor in attacks targeting South Korean entities. HappyDoor, according to AhnLab, has been put to use as far back as 2021.
Typically distributed via spear-phishing email attacks, the malware has witnessed steady improvements over the years, allowing it to harvest sensitive information; execute commands, PowerShell code, and batch scripts; and upload files of interest.
"Mainly taking on the disguise of a professor or an academic institution, the threat actor has been using social engineering techniques like spear-phishing to distribute emails with attachments that, once run, install a backdoor and may also install additional malware," AhnLab noted.
(The story was updated after publication to include additional insights from DTEX.)
