SocraticGadfly: Is North Korea into cyberterror?

July 08, 2009

Is North Korea into cyberterror?

That’s the best explanation I can think of for cyberattacks that knocked out financial and national security websites in both the U.S. and South Korea over the Fourth of July.

Now, government officials are being tight-lipped, for obvious reasons, but there’s no other country I can think of that would target us and South Korea and nobody else.

If my question has a “yes” answer, U.S. and South Korean officials both have to be pooping their pants. The Kims, father and son, are both not the most mentally stable world leaders.

And, remember how North Korea partners with Pakistan’s A.Q. Khan to spread rocket technology and nuclear know-how? Don’t you doubt for a second that Pyongyang will sell this technology wherever possible.

Update, July 9: Finally, just a couple of days after I mentioned the idea, the MSM is catching up on the possible North Korea angle.

The Washington Post says it has the earmarks of North Korea, also citing South Korean official government suspicions.

But Reuters says, wait a minute, citing experts who claim the attacks did not originate from computers inside North Korea, claiming the attacks were “unsophisticated,” too, for North Korea.

On the other hand, back to the Post story, cyberexperts there note that, alongside the “amateurish” part was the high volume of the attack, something most amateurs could’t deliver.

Update No. 2, July 11: Well, it looks like some U.S. media haven’t been probing American “security experts” hard enough about last week’s cyberattacks. The government of South Korea is gathering more evidence that the North Korean Army was behind the computer attacks on South Korean and U.S. government financial and national security websites and computers just before the Fourth of July.

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