US jails Maryland man over North Korean IT worker scheme involvement

The U.S. Justice Department has announced that Maryland resident Minh Phuong Ngoc Vong has been sentenced to 15 months imprisonment and three years of supervised release after permitting North Korean nationals to leverage his identity to work as a software developer at over a dozen U.S. firms between 2021 and 2024 as part of North Korea's IT worker scheme, reports The Record, a news site by cybersecurity firm Recorded Future.

Over $970,000 in salaries have been obtained by Vong throughout the illicit scheme, with North Koreans under the guise of Vong having been hired by a Virginia tech firm that worked with the Federal Aviation Administration in 2023. After being authorized by the FAA to access government systems and facilities, Vong installed remote access software in the company-approved laptop to facilitate compromise. Vong also admitted in his guilty plea to communications with a China-based foreign national leading North Korea's IT worker schemes. Such a development comes after the U.S. jailed an Arizona woman for over eight years for leading a laptop farm.