Vampirate Kitsune
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- Posted: Fri, 15 Mar 2013 16:12:53 +0000
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Are there no amateur hackers in North Korea?
Are there no amateur hackers in North Korea?
Quote:
North Korea Sees South and U.S. Behind Cyberstrikes
SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea, a country paranoid about perceived threats from the outside world, said on Friday that it had found new foreign invaders: hackers from the United States and its allies shutting down the North’s Web sites, the country’s main tool of spreading propaganda abroad.
Until now, the complaint came from the other direction, with South Korean officials suspecting that North Korea was behind a recent series of hacking attacks on South Korean and American Web sites. After North Korea’s recent threats to retaliate against United Nations sanctions, South Korea warned of possible North Korean efforts to disrupt the Internet in the South, one of the most wired countries in the world.
These accusations, although denied by the opposing sides, showed how inter-Korean tensions are increasingly spreading into cyberspace.
“It is nobody’s secret that the U.S. and South Korean puppet regime are massively bolstering up cyberforces in a bid to intensify the subversive activities and sabotages against the DPRK,” the North’s Korean Central News Agency said, using the acronym of the country’s official name, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. “They are seriously mistaken if they think they can quell the DPRK’s voices of justice through such base acts.”
North Korea’s often strident rhetoric has escalated to a feverish new pitch in recent weeks, complete with a threat to launch a “pre-emptive nuclear attack” at the United States and South Korea after the allies started joint military drills on March 1, followed by new United Nations sanctions for the North’s Feb. 12 nuclear test.
North Korea did not elaborate on what it called “intensive and persistent virus attacks” on its Internet servers. But Russia’s Itar-Tass news agency said a “powerful hacker attack” from abroad had brought down Internet servers inside the North. Nevertheless, the North’s two main channels of government statements and propaganda — the Web sites of the Rodong Sinmun newspaper and the Korean Central News Agency — operated normally on Friday.
In a report titled “Enemies of the Internet,” the group Reporters Without Borders included North Korea on a list of countries that “censor Internet access so effectively that they restrict their populations to local intranets that bear no resemblance to the World Wide Web.”
Only a fraction of North Korea’s elite has access to the global Internet, but under tight restrictions from the regime, whose totalitarian control rests on keeping its populace away from the influences of the outside world, human rights groups said.
Besides its weapons of mass destruction programs, North Korea has also an army of hackers trained to disrupt South Korea, where government operations and daily life depend greatly on its broadband Internet, South Korean officials said. North Korean hackers have been blamed for crashing the Web sites of government agencies and businesses in recent years, including a state-run bank server. Last May, South Korea accused North Korea of jamming signals, forcing hundreds of commercial flights to switch off their global positioning systems.
North Korea also opened accounts on You Tube and Twitter, taking its propaganda war against South Korea and the United States to the Web. Recent You Tube videos uploaded by North Korea have shown North Korean soldiers shaking rifles and whooping war cries against the United States. They also depict Manhattan ablaze from missile attacks and President Obama in flames.
Under its new leader, Kim Jong-un, the North has emphasized new technologies and allowed foreigners visiting the capital, Pyongyang, to access the mobile Internet.
But the regime has also reasserted its control over information sources after its near-total news blackout was challenged by citizens who live near the Chinese border using Chinese mobile phones. It also cracked down on CDs, DVDs and USB thumb drives smuggled through that border.
SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea, a country paranoid about perceived threats from the outside world, said on Friday that it had found new foreign invaders: hackers from the United States and its allies shutting down the North’s Web sites, the country’s main tool of spreading propaganda abroad.
Until now, the complaint came from the other direction, with South Korean officials suspecting that North Korea was behind a recent series of hacking attacks on South Korean and American Web sites. After North Korea’s recent threats to retaliate against United Nations sanctions, South Korea warned of possible North Korean efforts to disrupt the Internet in the South, one of the most wired countries in the world.
These accusations, although denied by the opposing sides, showed how inter-Korean tensions are increasingly spreading into cyberspace.
“It is nobody’s secret that the U.S. and South Korean puppet regime are massively bolstering up cyberforces in a bid to intensify the subversive activities and sabotages against the DPRK,” the North’s Korean Central News Agency said, using the acronym of the country’s official name, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. “They are seriously mistaken if they think they can quell the DPRK’s voices of justice through such base acts.”
North Korea’s often strident rhetoric has escalated to a feverish new pitch in recent weeks, complete with a threat to launch a “pre-emptive nuclear attack” at the United States and South Korea after the allies started joint military drills on March 1, followed by new United Nations sanctions for the North’s Feb. 12 nuclear test.
North Korea did not elaborate on what it called “intensive and persistent virus attacks” on its Internet servers. But Russia’s Itar-Tass news agency said a “powerful hacker attack” from abroad had brought down Internet servers inside the North. Nevertheless, the North’s two main channels of government statements and propaganda — the Web sites of the Rodong Sinmun newspaper and the Korean Central News Agency — operated normally on Friday.
In a report titled “Enemies of the Internet,” the group Reporters Without Borders included North Korea on a list of countries that “censor Internet access so effectively that they restrict their populations to local intranets that bear no resemblance to the World Wide Web.”
Only a fraction of North Korea’s elite has access to the global Internet, but under tight restrictions from the regime, whose totalitarian control rests on keeping its populace away from the influences of the outside world, human rights groups said.
Besides its weapons of mass destruction programs, North Korea has also an army of hackers trained to disrupt South Korea, where government operations and daily life depend greatly on its broadband Internet, South Korean officials said. North Korean hackers have been blamed for crashing the Web sites of government agencies and businesses in recent years, including a state-run bank server. Last May, South Korea accused North Korea of jamming signals, forcing hundreds of commercial flights to switch off their global positioning systems.
North Korea also opened accounts on You Tube and Twitter, taking its propaganda war against South Korea and the United States to the Web. Recent You Tube videos uploaded by North Korea have shown North Korean soldiers shaking rifles and whooping war cries against the United States. They also depict Manhattan ablaze from missile attacks and President Obama in flames.
Under its new leader, Kim Jong-un, the North has emphasized new technologies and allowed foreigners visiting the capital, Pyongyang, to access the mobile Internet.
But the regime has also reasserted its control over information sources after its near-total news blackout was challenged by citizens who live near the Chinese border using Chinese mobile phones. It also cracked down on CDs, DVDs and USB thumb drives smuggled through that border.
