The fraud conviction of the Maryland man highlights the growing cryptocurrency threat from North Korea

2025-12-06 01:59:33

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A man in Maryland has just been sentenced to federal prison for assisting IT personnel with North Korean ties to secretly infiltrate US companies, reflecting a larger trend in 2025 as insider breaches and crypto thefts increase sharply.

Prosecutors identified Minh Phuong Ngoc Vong as having used fake profiles to help his foreign associates—working from China and believed to be North Korean—secure remote programmer positions at 13 US businesses. A high-risk incident occurred when a Virginia tech company hired him for an FAA project that required US citizenship.

Vong installed remote access tools, enabling the North Koreans to secretly work from abroad. He collected over $970,000 and shared it with his partners. The sentencing comes amid a surge in North Korean hacks, including over $2 billion in cryptocurrency stolen this year, primarily through social engineering attacks rather than technical flaws.

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