CoinDesk identified more than a dozen crypto companies that unknowingly hired IT workers from the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), including such well-established blockchain projects as Injective, ZeroLend, Fantom, Sushi, Yearn Finance and Cosmos Hub.
The workers used fake IDs, successfully navigated interviews, passed reference checks and presented genuine work histories.
Hiring DPRK workers is against the law in the U.S. and other countries that sanction North Korea. It also presents a security risk: CoinDesk encountered multiple examples of companies hiring DPRK IT workers and subsequently getting hacked.