Asia News

North Korea’s Internet Back After Widespread Outages

North Korea experienced a widespread Internet outage on Monday, leading some to speculate the country’s internet connections have come under attack.

North Korea’s state-run Internet was down for 9 hours and 30 minutes today. It is not clear what caused the outage. As the outage went on all weekend and progressively worsened, it is believed to be the result of a denial-of-service attack aimed at the country’s infrastructure.

Last week, a Twitter handle claimed to represent the hacking group Anonymous tweeted, “Operation RIP North Korea, engaged,” according to ABC News.

[quote text_size=”small” author=”– Doug Madory” author_title=”Director of Internet analysis at Dyn Research”]

I haven’t seen such a steady beat of routing instability and outages in [North Korea] before. Usually there are isolated blips, not continuous connectivity problems. I wouldn’t be surprised if they are absorbing some sort of attack presently.

[/quote]

The outage comes less than a week after the United States vowed a response to a massive cyberattack against Sony Pictures over the release of the film “The Interview.” The plot of the movie centers on the assassination of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, which led to speculation that North Korea was responsible. The FBI publicly blamed North Korea, according to Fox News.

It is also possible that North Korea decided to take down its Internet, as countries with very low connectivity and a great deal of government control over telecommunications have done this in the past when they feel threatened, according to the Los Angeles Times.

North Korea is one of the least connected nations in the world. Few residents have access to computers, and those who do are usually only able to connect to domestic intranet. While over one million people use mobile phones in the country, the network only allows calls within the country.

Click to comment
To Top

Hi - We Would Love To Keep In Touch

If you liked this article then please consider joing our mailing list to receive the latest news, updates and opportunities from our team.

We don't want an impostor using your email address so please look for an email from us and click the link to confirm your email address.