Now in its third year, the AI Risk Summit is the leading conference that brings together CISOs, security leaders, AI researchers, developers, policymakers, and enterprise risk professionals.

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Two U.S. nationals were sentenced to 18 months in prison for running laptop farms that facilitated North Korea’s expansive remote IT workers scheme, the Justice Department said Wednesday.

Matthew Issac Knoot and Erick Ntekereze Prince both received and hosted laptops at their residences to dupe U.S. companies into thinking remote IT workers they hired were located in the country. The pair’s separate schemes impacted almost 70 U.S. companies and generated a combined $1.2 million in revenue for the North Korean regime.

“The FBI and our partners will continue to disrupt North Korea’s ability to circumvent sanctions and fund its totalitarian regime,” Brett Leatherman, lead of the FBI’s Cyber Division, said in a statement. “These cases should leave no doubt that Americans who choose to facilitate these schemes will be identified and held accountable. Hosting laptops for DPRK IT workers is a federal crime which directly impacts our national security, and these sentences should serve as a warning to anyone considering it.”

Knoot, of Nashville, Tennessee, and Prince, of New York, received the laptops from unsuspecting U.S. companies and installed remote desktop applications on the machines to enable co-conspirators to work from anywhere while appearing to be based at their respective residences.

Prince’s company Taggcar was contracted to supply IT workers to victim U.S. companies from June 2020 through August 2024. He pleaded guilty in November 2025 to wire fraud conspiracy for his yearslong involvement in the North Korean IT worker scheme. 

Prince was indicted and charged in January 2025 along with his alleged co-conspirators, who collectively obtained work for North Korean IT workers at 64 U.S. companies, earning nearly $950,000 in salary payments. 

A federal judge sentenced Prince Wednesday and ordered him to forfeit $89,000, which is the amount he netted personally. 

Knoot was arrested in August 2024, a year after the FBI searched his home. Officials said he made multiple false and misleading statements and destroyed evidence to obstruct the investigation at that time. 

Victim companies paid North Korean workers linked to Knoot’s laptop farm more than $250,000 from July 2022 to August 2023. The remote IT workers transferred those funds to Knoot and accounts associated with North Korean and Chinese nationals, officials said. 

Knoot was sentenced May 1 and ordered to pay $15,100 in restitution to the victim companies and forfeit an additional $15,100, which is equivalent to the amount of his direct take from the scheme.

The pair of North Korean operatives join a growing list of people who have been charged and jailed for supporting the regime’s scheme that generates hundreds of millions of dollars annually for the country’s military and organizations involved in its weapons programs.

Authorities have been cracking down on the malicious insider activity by seizing cryptocurrency linked to the theft, and targeting U.S.-based facilitators who provided forged or stolen identities and hosted laptop farms for North Korean operatives. 

The countermeasures are stacking up, but the scheme is widespread and has infiltrated an undetermined number of businesses, including hundreds of Fortune 500 companies.

Federal judges previously sentenced other people to prison for their involvement in the scheme, including Keija Wang and Zhenxing Wang; Audricus Phagnasay, Jason Salazar and Alexander Paul Travis; Oleksandr Didenko and Christina Chapman. 

“These sentences hold accountable U.S nationals who enabled North Korea’s illicit efforts to infiltrate U.S. networks and profit on the back of U.S. companies,” John A. Eisenberg, assistant attorney general for national security, said in a statement. 

“These defendants helped North Korean ‘IT workers’ masquerade as legitimate employees, compromising U.S. corporate networks and helping generate revenue for a heavily sanctioned and rogue regime,” he added. “The National Security Division will continue to pursue those who, through deception and cyber-enabled fraud, threaten our national security.”

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Cisco’s AI security researchers have analyzed ways to target vision-language models (VLMs) using pixel-level perturbation.

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Seth Whitworth, who is both acting Associate Deputy Chief of Space Operations for Cyber and Data and acting chief information security officer, said he believes AI tools are shifting the way defenders review cyber risk, both for individual systems and more holistically throughout an enterprise.  

In particular, Large Language Models can be used to systematically implement fixes for the smaller but critical weaknesses that have allowed state-sponsored hackers and cybercriminals to get inside victim networks and live off the land.

“Our adversaries are not looking for the massive cybersecurity vulnerabilities – we’re actually pretty good at [defending] that,” said Whitworth Tuesday at AI Talks, presented by Scoop News Group. “They’re looking for a misconfiguration, a failed update, a tiny little thing that allows them an entry point into a very connected network.”

Many of these basic cyber hygiene problems tend to fall under existing compliance programs, but it can take more than legal mandates to fix them. Many enterprise IT networks – particularly older ones – build up technical debt over time, leading to forgotten systems, hidden routers and other forms of shadow IT that get more insecure over time.

Cybersecurity experts say agents and the Large Language Models that power them – which operate in perpetuity 24/7, – are particularly well-suited to finding these smaller flaws and quickly exploiting them.

But Whitworth argued that the same technology can be used to reshape how organizations measure and track cyber compliance, from a sluggish box-checking exercise to something more nimble and substantive. He claimed that Space Force’s internal process for obtaining Authorities to Operate and other formal security certifications used to take 3-18 months. Now, it “can now be done in weeks and days.”

That in turn can empower program managers to “pull in all of that massive amount of data, allow the AI – who doesn’t get tired, who doesn’t miss patterns, who doesn’t miss these components – to churn on those items and them deliver something” that can inform real-time changes to cybersecurity, he said.

Whitworth also acknowledged the “fear” that many organizations still have around the use of AI, as well as lingering concerns about some of the technology’s enduring limitations like hallucinations and data poisoning. He said he still gives AI-generated outputs “extra scrutiny, because I haven’t seen the trusted validation” yet.

But he also said he gets more valuable insight on the Space Force’s holistic cyber risk from using Large Language Models than he does from other security control assessments, which tend to narrowly focus on the risk of single systems or assets in isolation.

“We are operating in a highly connected, highly orchestrated world, and so moderate risk that’s accepted in one program immediately becomes moderate risk that is accepted in another program,” said Whitworth. “AI can take that whole picture and understand that when this system change impacts this system, it also impacts this [other] system.”

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The Department of Commerce is putting together a catalog of AI tools that will be given special export status by the federal government to be sold abroad.

The department issued a call for proposals to participating companies in the Federal Register, looking to create a “menu of priority AI export packages that the U.S. Government will promote to allies and partners around the world.”

The companies and technologies included “will be presented by U.S. Government representatives as a standing, full-stack American AI export package and may receive priority government advocacy, export licensing review and processing, interagency coordination, and financing referrals, subject to applicable law,” the department said in a Federal Register notice Friday.

The export package was mandated through President Donald Trump’s AI executive order last year, which described the export packages as part of a larger effort to “ensure that American AI technologies, standards, and governance models are adopted worldwide” and “secure our continued technological dominance.”

“The American AI Exports Program delivers on President Trump’s directive to ensure that American AI systems – built on trusted hardware, secure data, and world-leading innovation – are deployed at scale around the world,” Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick said in a statement earlier this month. “By promoting full-stack American solutions, we are strengthening our economic and national security, deepening ties with allies and partners, and ensuring that the future of AI is led by the United States.”

The executive order called for certain technologies to be included in the package, including AI models and systems but also computer chips, data center storage, cloud services and networking services, along with unspecified “measures” to ensure security and cybersecurity of AI systems.

The Commerce notice envisions offering multiple packages of AI technology from “standing teams of AI companies organized to offer a complete American AI technology stack to foreign markets on an ongoing basis.” There is no limit on the number of companies that participate in a consortium, and Commerce said there isn’t “any particular legal structure” required.

While the proposal at several points refers to these packages as “American AI,” the notice does specify that foreign companies can participate.

In fact, for certain categories like hardware, the total level of U.S.-made content only needs to be 51% or greater. Member companies providing data, software, cybersecurity or application layer services can’t be incorporated or primarily based in countries like China or Russia, where national security laws may compel them to work with foreign governments or hand over sensitive data.

The potential business would be broad, covering foreign public and private sector buyers in global, regional, and country-specific markets. It also includes the potential formation of separate, “on demand” packages of companies and products meant for “specific foreign opportunities.”

But the notice also states that final decisions will be made on the basis of “national interest” by principals at the Departments of Commerce, State, Defense and Energy, as well as the White House Office of Science, Technology and Policy.

Commerce does not intend to formally rank proposals or use fixed scoring formulas to approve packages of technology for the export program, and the language in the notice appears to give wide latitude to federal decisionmakers to determine whether a particular proposal meets the “national interest” threshold.

“A proposal that undertakes reasonable efforts to satisfy the 51 percent hardware U.S.-content presumption is not automatically entitled to designation, and a proposal that does not satisfy that presumption is not automatically disqualified,” the notice said. 

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Our nation has entered a new fraud arms race fueled by AI.

With billions of dollars in fraud losses mounting in both the private and public sectors, it’s clear the old ways of deterring fraud aren’t working. That’s why we need a new playbook that starts with understanding how fraudsters operate, evolving our defenses, and shifting to a proactive posture that doesn’t just fight fraud but actively hunts it down. 

In the AI era, treating fraud as just a front-door problem won’t work. This moment requires industry, government, and consumers to work together, reduce silos, and share real-time intelligence. The goal is to move beyond reactive detection by understanding the lifecycle of a threat—from its formation to its spread—so we can intervene before it establishes a foothold.

For decades, fraud has been treated like a series of isolated incidents. This false assumption has underpinned nearly every past effort to crack down on it. Those efforts, while well-intentioned, have missed the mark. 

Now, in light of the Trump Administration’s Cyber Strategy for America and accompanying executive order, it’s critical to understand the modern fraud landscape and the central role that digital identity exploitation plays within it.

New research from Socure reveals just how dramatically the landscape is evolving. 

Fraud has become industrialized, with organized crime syndicates running operations that are global, systemic, automated, and powered by AI. No organization, service, or program is safe. Fraudsters target government programs, banks, fintech platforms, telecom companies, and more, blurring the lines between public sector fraud, financial crime, and cybercrime.

It used to be that fraud could be detected through the reuse of identity elements across multiple applications: the same email, device, phone number, or IP address used over and over. 

But the data is clear: these links are declining fast. Today’s sophisticated fraudsters are now engineering their attacks to avoid traditional fraud detection patterns. Our research demonstrates that emails will be completely unique within fraud populations as soon as 2027, so we won’t be able to rely on email to identify patterns.

Speed is another defining feature of modern identity fraud. Fraudsters use AI to create clean, durable, synthetic and stolen identities at scale. In one observed campaign, 24,148 synthetic identities were built and launched in under a month, with many attacks occurring within 48 hours. What once took weeks or even months can now be completed in days. 

The rapid rise of identity farms is another indicator of the industrialization of fraud. Identity farms are operated by crime rings to systematically create synthetic or stolen identities over time in order to closely resemble legitimate identities. Matured identities are used to open bank, credit, and money-movement accounts, siphon government benefits, launder funds, and more. These identity farms focus on durable identities that can bypass traditional verification controls.

So what should we do? Simply put, we must go on offense. 

This means treating identity as critical infrastructure and implementing strategies that track how identities were created before the moment of application; expanding signals monitoring to include elements like residential proxies, ISP behavior, and domain registration activity; evaluating velocity and orchestration in real-time; and treating continuous measurement, rapid model iteration, and cross-industry intelligence as core capabilities.

Additionally, given the rapid scaling of fraud, we need more analysis of the complete ecosystem, including dynamic factors like device information, digital footprints, and behavioral biometrics so organizations can effectively distinguish genuine humans from machines. Ultimately, this layered and interconnected approach makes it significantly harder for malicious actors to recreate or steal identities at scale.

Fraud is no longer a series of isolated acts. It is a coordinated, global enterprise built on the exploitation of identity. Until our efforts reflect this new reality, we will continue to fight an imminent and ongoing threat with outdated tools and fall further behind. 

Now is the time to make this strategic shift and finally put fraudsters on their heels. 

Mike Cook serves as head of fraud insights at Socure, the identity and risk platform for the AI age.

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Two years ago, it was revealed that Chinese hackers had compromised at least ten U.S. telecoms, giving them broad access to phone data affecting nearly all Americans. Since then, public officials charged with responding to the campaign and bolstering the nation’s cyber defenses have reported a common problem.

Many of their constituents struggle to understand why the hacks – carried out by a group called Salt Typhoon – should rank among their top concerns, or how it impacts their day to day lives.

Some state and federal officials worry that this lack of interest is depriving policymakers the public pressure needed to build momentum for stronger action to improve the nation’s telecommunications cybersecurity.

Mike Geraghty, the CISO and director of the New Jersey Cybersecurity and Communications Cell, said New Jersey is the nation’s most densely populated state, with a high concentration of critical infrastructure and a major telecommunications footprint. For that reason, a campaign like Salt Typhoon should, in theory, be of strong interest to Garden State residents.

“However, if you talk to a person on the street in New Jersey, they’’ll say who cares that the Chinese are looking at – you know – what numbers I call?” he said Wednesday at the Billington State and Local Cybersecurity Summit. “It has a big role to play in my job, but trying to get people to understand what that means for New Jersey is really difficult.”

Congress hasn’t passed comprehensive privacy legislation in decades. Meanwhile, cyberattacks that expose sensitive data are widespread, and U.S. companies routinely collect and sell customers’ personal information. Some officials speculate that, taken together, these trends have left Americans numb to data theft and data-for-profit–so additional breaches feel like just another drop in the bucket.

Mischa Beckett, deputy chief information security officer and director of cyber threat intelligence at GDIT, said Salt Typhoon’s focus on telecom data can feel like an abstract threat to many Americans. By contrast, other Chinese hacking campaigns like Volt Typhoon suggest potential damage to water plants and electric grids that are easier to grasp.

“It’s maybe a little bit easier to write off a loss of data..and move on, as unfortunate but no big deal,” said Beckett. “I think that case is much harder to make when we’re talking about pre-positioning and critical infrastructure, things that touch all of our lives every day.”

Last year, a former intelligence official at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence told CyberScoop that a lack of outrage from the public following the Salt Typhoon attacks was dampening momentum for broader regulation or reforms to telecom cybersecurity.

“We can’t accept this level of espionage on our networks,” said Laura Galante who led the Cyber Threat Intelligence Integration Center under the Biden administration. “If you had 50 Chinese [Ministry of State Security] spies or contractors sitting inside a major [telecom company’s] building, they would be walked out and it would be a full-scale effort. That’s in broad strokes what has happened, but the access was digital.”

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