Posted on 10/04/2004 6:45:50 PM PDT by wagglebee
North Korea has trained as many as 600 computer hackers to be capable of launching a cyber-war on South Korea, the US or Japan, South Korea’s defence ministry said on Monday.
Coming amid intelligence reports that Pyongyang might be preparing to test a ballistic missile, the report will exacerbate jitters over the extent of the communist state’s destructive ability.
“North Korea’s intelligence warfare capability is estimated to have reached the level of advanced countries,” the ministry said in a report to the National Assembly’s national defence committee.
North Korea’s military command has 500 to 600 hacking staff who have undertaken a five-year university programme, the report said. Their main task is to gather intelligence from - or launch a cyber attack on - the US, Japan and South Korea.
In a wave of attacks earlier this year, nearly 300 South Korean government computers at departments including the National Assembly and an atomic energy research institute were infected with viruses capable of stealing passwords and other sensitive information.
South Korea is particularly vulnerable to cyber-crime because it has the world’s highest usage of broadband services and relatively poor levels of internet security.
The South Korean intelligence traced the hackers to China, although it was unclear whether they were based in China or just using a Chinese network.
The defence ministry’s report comes as Pyongyang’s relations with Washington, Seoul and Tokyo deteriorate.
North Korea is refusing to return to the diplomatic table for the latest round of six-party talks between the countries, as well as China and Russia. The talks have reached an impasse owing to what Pyongyang calls the US’s “hostile policies” towards North Korea.
The process has been further complicated by recent revelations that South Korea has enriched a small amount of uranium and separated plutonium in secret experiments during the past 22 years.
Mohamed ElBaradei, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, on Monday held talks in Seoul with Lee Hun-jai, the South Korean prime minister, as part of the agency’s investigation into the experiments.
We are so scared... Someone in an earlier thread mentioned that we (The civilized world) can just unhook NK from the Internet if it gets too bad. From what I hear, the best computer hackers in the world are all Russian. (Our best computer guys have great jobs, too much to lose.) Good thing the cold war is over... The cult of the dead cow is a good hacker site from what I've heard... No, I am not a hacker.
North Korean hackers? What are they using -- Commodore 64's?
More likely the old Radio Shack TRS-80s
They have a system of hard counterfeit currency laundering (through Hong Kong, Macao, etc) and other profits from amphetamine sales, so they are flush with enough cash to purchase such equipment and get it to the DPRK. What they cannot get on open markets, they can find wiling Japanese firms to blackmarket to them, some with military and population-supression applications. The old "capitalist's rope" thing, you see.
We should have some agents sell them a bunch of equipments with well-hidden "worms."
We of course have methods to fry a lot of their electronic infrastructure in Pyongyang (if we could get that close). They probably have remote teams in other parts of the country, housed separately. They are taking cyber terrorism very very serious. Kim Jong il and his intelligence directorate are of course the driving forces behind these activities.
Besides, the biggest threat to the Internet isn't nation-sponsored hackers...it's frickin' backhoes.
South Korea does a lot of hacking themselves. Especially against China.
In the last 3 weeks I have had 14 different attacks launched against my computer and all but 3 have originated from South Korea. The other 3 have been launched from the Chinese Ministry of Information.
He can "immediately" do away with this current atmosphere of "friction" with the DPRK, and also do away with the bunker busting nuke development program which still has Kim Jong il urinating down his pant leg.
Yep, Im as American as they come. I am currently in the South-Eastern part of China continuing my language studies and doing independent research for my University back home.
I'll even give ya my IP addy to try !......201.60.150.82
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