Korea peninsula - a venue for cyber activity

[AdamG]

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Three threads merged and renamed: Korea peninsula - a venue for cyber activity (ends)



(Reuters) - South Korean authorities were investigating a hacking attack that brought down the servers of three broadcasters and two major banks on Wednesday, and the army raised its alert level due to concerns of North Korean involvement.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/03/20/us-korea-cyber-outage-idUSBRE92J06F20130320

[AdamG]

Quid pro quo time, Clarice

http://bgr.com/2013/04/02/anonymous-north-korea-cyber-warefare-410854/

[Bill Moore]

Adam,

Thanks for posting, I didn't see this earlier. Best of luck to them.


Anonymous’ threats towards North Korea come amid increased tensions on the Korean Peninsula with South Korea and the United States. The group explicitly stated, however, that it does not support the U.S. and is instead a fighter for freedom.

I'm not advocating going to war, but the world has stood by for decades and allowed one of most serious humanitarian crises on the planet to unfold largely in silience. I have little faith in any government to solve the issue due to significant conflicting state interests in the region. Maybe a non-state actor can help bring the regime to its knees? Doubtful, but one can always hope.

[AdamG]

Airborne! *Heh*


PAJU, South Korea — At the base of a mountain almost two miles from the North Korean border, the giant helium balloons slowly float upward, borne by a stiff, cold wind. These are not balloons in the conventional sense—the transparent, cylindrical tubes covered in colorful Korean script are more than 20 feet in length and each carries three large bundles wrapped in plastic. The characters painted on one of the balloons reads, “The regime must fall.”

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/01/we-hacked-north-korea-with-balloons-and-usb-drives/283106/

[AdamG]

South Korea is developing offensive cyber weapons to target North Korea’s nuclear weapons program, according to the country’s defense ministry said on Wednesday.

According to Yonhap News Agency, South Korea’s Defense Ministry outlined its long-term cyberpolicy to the parliament’s defense committee on Wednesday. The report stated that, “A strategic plan for the second phase calls for developing cybertools for offense like Stuxnet, a computer virus that damaged Iran’s uranium enrichment facility, to cripple North Korea’s missile and atomic facilities.” Yonhap also quoted an anonymous senior defense official as saying: “Once the second phase plan is established, the cyber command will carry out comprehensive cyberwarfare missions.”

These missions will be carried out under a new Cyber Defense Command that South Korea plans to establish in May. It will operate under the purview of the ROK Joint Chiefs of Staff, according to the report.

http://thediplomat.com/2014/02/s-korea-seeks-cyber-weapons-to-target-north-koreas-nukes/

[AdamG]

SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea apparently hacked into the South Korean military’s internal cyber network in the first-ever such breach, officials said Tuesday.
The incident happened in September, but military officials initially played down reports.
An investigation showed some classified military materials had been compromised, the Ministry of National Defense confirmed Tuesday.

https://www.stripes.com/news/n-korea-suspected-of-hacking-s-korean-military-s-cyber-command-1.442833

[AdamG]

Experts are suggesting the in-flight failure and crash of the missile launched by North Korea on Wednesday could have been the result of a "left-of-launch" attack by the United States.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/04/06/left-of-launch-attacks-may-bringing-north-korean-missiles/

[AdamG]

(Bloomberg) -- North Korea stole blueprints of missile-equipped ships and unspecified submarines in a heist last year of#classified documents from the world’s biggest shipbuilder, Dong-A Ilbo newspaper reported, citing opposition party lawmaker Kyeong Dae-soo.

About 60 classified military documents were among the 40,000 hacked#from South Korea’s Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering Co. in April 2016, the newspaper said. They included information on construction technology, blueprints, weapons systems, and evaluations of the ships and submarines.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/north-korea-hacks-south-korean-warship-blueprints-report-says/ar-AAufy03?li=BBmkt5R&ocid=spartandhp

[AdamG]

Bitcoin values are skyrocketing, and North Korea appears to be trying to profit from that virtual gold rush. Secureworks reports that the Lazarus Group (a team linked to the North Korean government) has been conducting a spearphishing campaign against cryptocurrency industry workers in a bid to steal bitcoin. The attacks have tried to trick workers into compromising their computers by including a seemingly innocuous Word file that claims they need to enable editing to see the document. If they fell prey, it installed a rogue macro that quietly loaded a PC-hijacking trojan while staffers were busy looking at the bogus document.
Attempts have been taking place as recently as November, but Secureworks' analysts saw activity as early as 2016. The organization adds that the campaign is likely still going, and that this is a preliminary report. You may get a better sense of the scope in the future.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/north-korea-hackers-steal-bitcoin-233700627.html

[AdamG]

In light of recent events, from October 2017


The World Once Laughed at North Korean Cyberpower. No More.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/15/world/asia/north-korea-hacking-cyber-sony.html?_r=0

This is like a Mel Brooks movie script -


When North Korean hackers tried to steal $1 billion from the New York Federal Reserve last year, only a spelling error stopped them. They were digitally looting an account of the Bangladesh Central Bank, when bankers grew suspicious about a withdrawal request that had misspelled “foundation” as “fandation.”
Even so, Kim Jong-un’s minions still got away with $81 million in that heist.

"Missed it by *that* much"


Then only sheer luck enabled a 22-year-old British hacker to defuse the biggest North Korean cyberattack to date, a ransomware attack last May that failed to generate much cash but brought down hundreds of thousands of computers across dozens of countries — and briefly crippled Britain’s National Health Service.

Money shot. Pay attention, you people in the cheap seats.


Their track record is mixed, but North Korea’s army of more than 6,000 hackers is undeniably persistent, and undeniably improving, according to American and British security officials who have traced these attacks and others back to the North.
https://i.imgur.com/TfIa9HG.jpg

[AdamG]

South Korea's spy agency has begun investigating the possibility that North Korean hackers orchestrated the theft of about $500 million worth of digital coins from Japanese cryptocurrency exchange Coincheck, said a lawmaker who attended a meeting with the head of the intelligence service.
The National Intelligence Service is investigating last month's incident -- one of the largest cryptocurrency heists in history -- based on similarities with past cases associated with its northern neighbor's cyber-attack apparatus, said the lawmaker, who didn't want to be identified because of the sensitivity of the information. The South Korean agency is now examining the incident with cooperation from international authorities, the lawmaker added.

Bloomberg via
http://www.mysanantonio.com/business/article/N-Korea-said-to-be-suspected-of-hatching-12555021.php

[AdamG]

but originally in the Washington Post.


Russian military spies hacked several hundred computers used
at the 2018 Winter Olympic Games in South Korea, according to anonymous US intelligence officials.

They tried to make it appear as though the intrusion was by North Korea, the officials claim.

Officials in Pyeongchang acknowledged that the Games were hit by a cyberattack during the February 9 opening ceremony but refused to say whether Russia was responsible. That evening there were disruptions to the internet, broadcast systems and the Olympics website. Many attendees were unable to print their tickets, resulting in empty seats.
http://www.scmp.com/news/world/article/2134625/russia-hacked-olympics-and-tried-make-it-look-north-korea-did-it-us