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Ask HN: What to do when you suspect your interview is with a state operative?

19 points puppycodes | 1 comments | 29 Aug 25 00:26 UTC | HN request time: 0.208s | source

I'm curious what HN thinks is the best course of action when you are reasonably certain you have interviewed someone who is attempting to gain access to your company from a certain place that is famously totalitarian.

Let's assume they are a state actor, Here are some things that crossed my mind:

- Citizens from this region of the world are forced to do this and it amounts to slave labor. I have empathy for their situation. What is a responsible way to report things like this?

- I try to avoid communicating with law enforcement in general, is the FBI or other US agency the only avenue to warn others?

- Without hiring this person, what exposure should we worry about? What precautions are worth taking in the future?

Thanks for your insights :)

1. stevenicr ◴[30 Aug 25 17:55 UTC] No.45076670[source]▶
npr had a segment not too long ago exposing this and walked through the steps for one company, and it led to additional training for HR and the first line of checking resmume's and such - can't recall the date it ran.

There have been similar stories recently: https://www.techtarget.com/searchSecurity/feature/How-to-spo...

https://www.wbur.org/onpoint/2025/06/12/cybersecurity-indust...

https://cloud.google.com/transform/ultimate-insider-threat-n...

https://ogletree.com/insights-resources/blog-posts/fbi-warns...

I think the npr segment was like a third party cybersecurity podcast they aired to buffer time in daytime(?)