North Korea Accuses US of Hacking Attack

Attacks Knocked Several Sites Offline for Days

North Korea’s state news agency has accused the United States of being behind a series of recent attacks which knocked a number of government sites, including the news agency’s own, offline for several days.

They offered no specific evidence for the allegation but there is some reason to believe it is credible, as US officials announced earlier this week the creation of 13 “offensive” cyberwarfare teams authorized to launch attacks abroad.

South Korean officials responded by saying North Korea routinely attacks their websites, though they neither confirmed nor denied any involvement in the apparent attacks on North Korean sites.

The internet is mostly irrelevant to North Korea internally at any rate, with the secretive state allowing access to almost nobody in the first place, and the websites mostly targeting overseas audiences with an effort at garnering sympathy for the government. Most government computers are rather attached to a separate internal intranet, cordoned off from the rest of the world much as the nation has been.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.