Can Your Hiring Process Catch a Deepfake Employee? A Cybersecurity Insider Threat Checklist

Nation-state actors and cybercriminals are no longer just attacking from the outside. Increasingly, they’re slipping in through your own hiring process — posing as legitimate remote employees using stolen identities, AI-generated résumés, and real-time deepfake technology. 

This isn’t a futuristic threat — it’s happening now. In July 2025, the U.S. Treasury sanctioned multiple North Korean companies and individuals for running large-scale fake worker operations. Just two weeks later, Christina Chapman, a U.S. woman, was sentenced to over eight years in prison for running a “laptop farm” of 90 corporate devices, making DPRK operatives look like they were working from within the United States. Those operatives collectively targeted 309 companies and generated $17 million in illicit revenue — part of which funded North Korea’s nuclear weapons program. 

We recently covered this topic on Cyberside Chats, where we dug into how these schemes work and why they’re such a dangerous insider threat and supply chain risk. In this post, you’ll get a practical checklist you can use right now to strengthen your hiring defenses. 

Why Deepfake Hiring Fraud is a Cybersecurity Issue 

When a fake worker gets in the door, they don’t just take a salary — they get access. 

These imposters are given company laptops, VPN connections, and credentials for critical systems. Once inside, they can: 

• Exfiltrate sensitive data over weeks or months 

• Steal source code and intellectual property 

• Plant backdoors or malware 

• Map your network for future attacks 

The risk doesn’t stop at your direct hires. If they get in through a vendor, managed service provider (MSP), or subcontractor, they might already have access to your systems and data — without ever being vetted by your own HR team. This is how a single fake worker can quietly compromise multiple organizations at once. 

CrowdStrike’s 2025 Threat Hunting Report found that DPRK operatives infiltrated 320+ companies between July 2024 and June 2025 — a 220% increase from the year before. The scale, sophistication, and financial stakes make this a top-tier insider threat. 

The Hiring Security Checklist 

Use these six measures to help ensure your next hire is who they claim to be. 

1. Independent Background Checks

• • Verify government-issued ID with official databases 

• • Directly confirm employment history with past employers 

• • Review professional and social media profiles for consistency 

2. Live Identity Challenges in Interviews

• • Ask candidates to change lighting or camera angle during the call 

• • Request they hold up a government-issued ID 

• • Include unscripted, live questions to disrupt pre-recorded or AI-fed answers 

3. Geolocation & Device Monitoring (Post-Hire)

• • Detect “impossible travel” login patterns 

• • Flag use of foreign IP addresses or VPN masking when location should be domestic 

• • Identify multiple accounts logging in from the same device 

4. Vendor Screening

• • Require vendors to follow equivalent vetting and identity verification standards 

• • Limit vendor account privileges to least-necessary access 

• • Build identity verification and monitoring requirements into contracts 

5. Multi-Job & Productivity Monitoring (Post-Hire)

• • Watch for overlapping schedules or unexplained productivity drops 

• • Look for identical deliverables across projects 

• • Flag heavy reliance on AI-generated output that doesn’t match the employee’s profile 

6. Joint HR + Security Training

• • Train HR teams on recognizing synthetic identities 

• • Create clear escalation paths for suspicious candidates 

• • Include security in all remote onboarding workflows 

Integrating Hiring Security into Your Cybersecurity Program 

Your hiring process is part of your security perimeter. Treat it like an access control point — because that’s exactly what it is. 

• Involve IT and security teams in candidate vetting for technical roles 

• Update onboarding policies to include identity verification steps 

• Extend these requirements to your third-party risk management program 

Take Action 

Don’t let your next hire become your next breach. 

Use our Hiring Security Checklist to strengthen your defenses against deepfake employees.  Contact our experts at LMG Security to assess your insider threat prevention program and vendor vetting processes.