Is the person you hired really at the laptop?
NearAuth.ai checks, all day, that each remote employee's own phone is sitting next to their company laptop, and flags when someone is controlling that laptop from somewhere else. Laptop farms, borrowed logins and outsourced jobs stop looking like normal work.
The problem: the login is real, the person isn't
On October 13, 2026 the FBI warned again about North Korean IT workers who get hired by US companies under false identities. Company laptops are shipped to US "laptop farms," where facilitators set them up for remote control from abroad. Workers in one scheme held jobs at more than 70 US companies (SecurityWeek).
Passwords, passkeys and push approvals can't see this. The worker has valid credentials and approves every prompt. The same blind spot covers an employee who quietly hands their job to someone else, or a login shared with a friend.
How NearAuth.ai helps
Enroll the person's phone
The employee pairs their phone with their company laptop. The phone's key lives in its secure hardware, and Apple or Google attests that it's a genuine device running our app.Check presence all day
The laptop and phone prove to our server, over an encrypted Bluetooth link, that they're within a few meters of each other. When the phone leaves, access ends.Flag remote control
The laptop app reports Remote Desktop sessions, remote-control tools and other people's accounts on the screen. Admins choose to log, ask the owner, or block.What admins see
- Which person was at which computer at any moment, with the IP address and approximate location.
- Alerts for remote sessions, a different user on the screen, and sign-ins from unexpected places or impossible travel.
- Away from the office, sign-in can require the phone's owner to approve with Face ID, a fingerprint or the phone passcode.
What it doesn't do
NearAuth.ai doesn't replace identity checks at hiring. A hardware keyboard-and-video switch plugged into a laptop looks like a real keyboard to any software, so pair NearAuth.ai with hiring verification and a company device inventory. What it does is make a farmed laptop expensive and noisy to run: someone has to keep each enrolled phone beside each laptop, all day, and remote-control software gets flagged.
Remote-session detection is available on Windows today; Mac support is in progress.
Privacy by design
No keystrokes, screenshots, GPS tracking or biometric data. Fingerprint and face checks stay on the phone. See our Privacy Policy and subprocessors.
Free 30-day pilot
- For 5 to 20 remote employees on Windows or Mac, with Google Workspace or Microsoft 365.
- Most teams have their first five people running in about 15 minutes.
- Start in log-only mode, so nobody is blocked while you see what turns up.
- At the end, we review the findings with you. No charge, no commitment.
Christopher McLain, founder • chris@nearauth.ai • 607-238-3533