Wispr Flow turns your voice into clean, ready-to-send writing — speak naturally, it strips the filler and fixes the punctuation. I've used it daily since February 2026 to build this newsletter. Read the full review →
You post a remote contract role. One applicant has a tidy résumé, a matching professional profile, a strong coding test and smooth interview answers. A new report from Microsoft Threat Intelligence shows AI can now help fake applicants produce every one of those.
The report, published October 29, tracks how North Korean government-backed groups use AI. One group Microsoft calls Jasper Sleet "uses fraudulent identities to obtain legitimate remote employment." Real paychecks from real companies, earned under someone else's name.
Why this is your problem too
Microsoft's own hiring advice names staffing companies as "the easiest avenue for North Korean workers to infiltrate target companies." If you bring on remote contractors through an agency, that door is open to you too.
The FBI's October 13 public service announcement says these workers "almost always exfiltrate data," and that they pay Americans to "appear on camera, participate in job interviews or meetings." The person in your interview may not be the person doing the work.
What AI does for them
Microsoft puts Jasper Sleet in the highest of its four stages of AI adoption. It lists what four North Korean groups, Jasper Sleet among them, use AI for, including to "build resumes, biographies, and realistic interview responses," "support coding assessments" and "alter profile images, video, voice, and backgrounds." Microsoft says Jasper Sleet's AI tooling also helps keep communication consistent "across multiple fraudulent worker personas."
The Agentic Engineering Playbook top engineers are using
Most engineers are stuck babysitting AI one prompt at a time. A handful have figured out how to build agents that plan, execute, and self-correct on their own. Sign up for The Code and get The Complete Playbook for Agentic Engineering. Claude Code, subagents, MCP, all of it.
One honest limit: Microsoft says these operations "remain human-directed and have not become fully autonomous." AI makes each person faster and more convincing. It doesn't replace them.
6 checks before you sign
Built on Microsoft's vetting guidance, plus a few tips of our own:
Give agency contractors extra scrutiny. Microsoft says to apply "greater scrutiny" to staffing-company workers. Our tip: ask the firm (in writing) what identity checks it ran, then run your own.
See them on camera, more than once. If camera or microphone trouble keeps them from taking part, Microsoft says "this should be considered a red flag."
Make the paperwork line up. Names, addresses and dates should match across the résumé and background check.
Call the references. By phone or video, "rather than email only."
Confirm a real-world footprint. Microsoft lists "a real phone number (not VOIP), a residential address, and social media accounts," and says to check that profiles aren't near-copies of someone else's.
Look for a second job under the same identity. Search their name, photo and profile.
After they start
The FBI lists signs to watch: remote-control software or gadgets on the work laptop, apps that have nothing to do with the job, and bank accounts and addresses that keep changing. Our advice: if you ship a laptop, ship it only to the address on the background check, and give contractors only the access their job needs.
Don't overcorrect
The FBI says these workers "cannot be identified reliably with a single indicator," and warns that aggressive controls can harm legitimate employees. Our advice: run the same checks on everyone, treat an odd answer as a reason to ask, not to accuse, and never treat an accent, a name or a country as a warning sign. If you think you've hired one, file a complaint at ic3.gov.
Bottom line. AI has made a fake applicant look as polished as a real one. You can't out-read a perfect résumé, but you can make a fake identity work hard: camera time more than once, live reference calls, a real phone and address, and no second job under the same name.
On the site: every fact sourced, the after-hire warning signs in detail, and a copy-paste prompt that interviews you about the role and builds your own before-you-sign checklist, plus an email for your staffing firm.
Stop Making Shoppers Spell It Out
“Running shos” shouldn’t return zero results. Neither should “red waterprof trail runners under $150.”
Traditional search needs exact keywords. Gladly understands what shoppers mean, typos and all, and turns dead-end searches into products that fit what they asked for.
Next time something breaks, what's your actual first move?
— Jerry
AI Super Simplified