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Episode: A former North Korean hacker speaks out
Date: December 5, 2025
Host: Dina Temple-Raston (Recorded Future News)

Episode Overview

This episode revisits the compelling true story of Kim Ji Min, a former North Korean IT worker (and defector), offering a rare, insider look into the Hermit Kingdom’s covert digital labor force—an “army” of tech workers trained to infiltrate foreign companies, steal money, and propagate cyber operations for Kim Jong Un’s regime. Through interviews with Kim (voiced in English) and Bada Nam of the PS Corps NGO, the episode exposes both the technical machinery and the deep human cost of North Korea’s global cyber campaign.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. North Korea’s Hidden Export: IT Workers for Espionage

• North Korea trains and sends young IT professionals abroad (primarily to China or Russia) not for innovation, but to conduct cybercrime and funnel earnings back to the regime.
  “The main market for the North Korean IT workers is the US market.”
  — Kim Ji Min [07:26]

• Workers are often disguised as remote employees, leveraging fake resumes and even AI-generated images to slip into companies undetected.
  “The North Koreans who are hacking your inbox... are actually prisoners themselves.”
  — Dina Temple-Raston [02:07]

2. Life for North Korean IT Workers: Surveillance and Fear

• Life abroad means constant surveillance—mandatory screen monitoring, suspicion among co-workers, and severe consequences for slip-ups.
  “Screen monitoring systems are installed on all computers... Not installing the screen monitoring program is considered to be something you shouldn't be doing and you are handled like a criminal.”
  — Kim Ji Min [09:27]

• Team leaders operate a regimented system, and failure to perform results in immediate replacement and repatriation to North Korea.
  “It's like the military, and each team has a leader. If someone can't do their job, that person is sent back to North Korea and substituted with someone new.”
  — Kim Ji Min [01:53]

• The regime holds workers’ families hostage—promising a cut of their earnings as a carrot, but also using the threat of retribution as a stick.
  “Every North Korean who’s going abroad, they need to leave their families back in North Korea, kind of like hostages.”
  — Bada Nam [08:41]

3. Isolation and Psychological Toll

• The psychological impact is severe: stress, isolation, and the constant struggle between loyalty, survival, and fear for loved ones.
  “The stress and isolation drove many to insanity.”
  — Kim Ji Min [02:22]

• Kim Ji Min’s emotional recollection encapsulates the double life—fleeting freedom colored by eventual despair:
  “When you first go abroad, you can still feel good for about three years... But those years fly by so fast.”
  — Kim Ji Min [01:11], [12:35]
  “Once flying into North Korea from China... it is like watching colored television in China. Then entering North Korea, it felt like switching to black and white.”
  — Kim Ji Min [12:54]

4. The Regime’s Evolving Toolkit: AI and Beyond

• North Korea is stepping up its game with “Research Center 227,” an internal AI lab tasked with building homegrown tools for social engineering and cyberattacks. “Their mandate is simple and chilling. Build a homegrown North Korean AI. Why? To make their phishing schemes smarter, their fake recruiters more convincing...”
  — Dina Temple-Raston [11:03]

• Experts like Bada Nam warn that AI will supercharge North Korea’s ability to execute more sophisticated and convincing attacks:
  “Even for the illegal IT workers from North Korea, they will use AIs and try to attack our life... in very creative ways than we expected.”
  — Bada Nam [11:56]

5. Reframing North Korean IT Workers: From Enemies to Victims

• South Korean perspectives on North Korea have evolved—from “wolves” and “enemies” to a more compassionate understanding of ordinary North Koreans as victims of an oppressive regime. “They are kind of like same people. They are under the oppression of the brutal regime... Actually we were one family for 5,000 years and just separated for 70 years. We should be reunificated and need to work, live together, be together.”
  — Bada Nam [05:34]

• Kim Ji Min, now living in South Korea, earns less but expresses happiness and hope: “Actually he’s earning less money than when he was in China because he cannot do money laundering. But he’s very happy now and he wanted to improve the IT workers’ human rights.”
  — Bada Nam [13:14]

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Kim Ji Min on the illusion of freedom:
  “When you first go abroad, you can still feel good for about three years. It's much better than being in North Korea. But those years fly by so fast.” [01:11], [12:35]

• Kim Ji Min on returning to North Korea:
  “Once flying into North Korea from China... it felt like switching to black and white.” [12:54]

• Bada Nam on changing perspectives:
  “We were one family for 5,000 years...We should be reunificated and need to work, live together, be together." [05:34]

• Kim Ji Min, on perpetual risk:
  “We were under constant surveillance.” [03:18]

• Dina Temple-Raston on the digital machinery:
  “Comrades in sweatpants, sharing bunk beds, logging on, breaking in, getting paid, and watching their backs.” [02:43]

Timestamps for Key Segments

• [01:11] – Kim Ji Min shares his initial feelings after leaving North Korea
• [02:07-02:30] – Description of IT worker life and psychological toll
• [04:26-05:34] – Bada Nam recounts how South Korean views on North Korea evolved
• [07:26-08:06] – The reality of working as an IT export: quotas, locations, surveillance
• [09:27-09:54] – Monitoring, surveillance, and lack of privacy
• [11:03-12:09] – Introduction and discussion of AI-powered cyber operations
• [12:54-13:34] – Kim Ji Min’s story of leaving and his current life in South Korea

Tone & Language

The episode maintains a human, empathetic, and investigative tone—making complex cyber phenomena accessible by focusing on people and their stories. Dina Temple-Raston and Bada Nam provide clear, jargon-free explanations, while Kim Ji Min’s testimony offers intimate, emotional insight into the lives of North Korea’s hidden digital workforce.