North Korea is warning that the US and its allies “should be held wholly accountable” after claiming that a massive cyber attack has taken the country offline over the past two days, despite virtually no one in the secretive state being allowed on the interwebs.
The axis of evil state’s Korean Central News Agency blamed the US, in typically understated fashion, for “very disturbing developments” and “despicable and base acts” upon its internet infrastructure, for which its enemies will suffer “ensuing consequences”, according to the North Korea Tech blog.
It added the following:
Intensive and persistent virus attacks are being made every day on internet servers operated by the DPRK… The DPRK will never remain a passive onlooker to the enemies’ cyber attacks that have reached a very grave phase as part of their moves to stifle it. It is ridiculous, indeed, for the hostile forces to mount such virus attacks on the DPRK’s internet servers, much upset by the all-out action of its army and people to defend the sovereignty of the country and the nation.
Ironically enough, the majority of the nation’s citizens aren’t even allowed to access the world wide web, so even if a widespread cyber attack has taken the country offline, only “elite” members of society, as well as a select group of academics and scientists, would be affected.
A swipe at a few web servers is not, therefore, a major disruption to the life of most North Koreans.
The country has had a restricted 3G network since 2008, run by Egyptian/North Korean JV Koryolink, wireless data connectivity was only switched on last month, for foreigners, tourists and presumably former NBA stars.
This has led to some interesting tweets and Instagram snaps from the handful of foreigners in the reclusive state, but such connectivity options are beyond the wildest dreams of most proles there.
Still, there is hope that supreme leader Kim Jong-un may be more tech-savvy than his presidential predecessors, and therefore perhaps more inclined to relax internet restrictions. He was snapped last month, for example, with what appeared to be an HTC smartphone at his side. ®
Article source: http://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.co.uk/2013/03/15/north_korea_cyber_attack_internet/
