Comments on: 2nd Round of Cyber Attacks Occur as North Korea Confirmed as Instigator

By: Jonathon Payne

Jonathon Payne — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 20:45:24 +0000

"What I find most troubling about this is that if North Korea is able to pull off these attacks with such success, could you imagine what the Chinese could do?"

I have a feeling that the reason that these attacks were so successful is precisely because NK had Chinese help.

By: Teadrinker

Teadrinker — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 08:23:32 +0000

I've read Chosun Ilbo's site was being attacked tonight. Loading up the site was a bit slow (by Korean internet standards) but nothing too serious. They must have been ready for this round of attacks.

By: USinKorea

USinKorea — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 07:51:51 +0000

You know, this is kinda like taking Juche to a whole new level:

No longer content (or able) to just rest as the most isolated nation on the planet, the regime is reaching out to cripple the information highway of the world. By attacking cyber space, the effort is in part one of closing down the exchange of information globally – no matter how limited in time and the number of sites successfully shut down might be.

Juche became the means in part by which NK’s society was isolated and starved close to death. Now, it includes a desperate attempt to feed itself not by opening up, but by threatening to close up/isolate everybody else…

By: Quasi

Quasi — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 05:43:03 +0000

I'm sure this is interrupting the marathon Starcraft tournaments across the ROK.

By: Teadrinker

Teadrinker — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 03:46:43 +0000

"There are"

By: Teadrinker

Teadrinker — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 03:46:22 +0000

DDoS attacks are pretty standard. They're are plenty of applications out there that enable that sort of attack.

Now, remember, they attacked high profile websites, not necessarily high security ones.

By: JoeC

JoeC — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 03:37:11 +0000

Korea probably has a higher density of those zombie computers.

In the push of the past decade to make Korea an IT leader, the government and the Telcoms got together to make high speed internet accessible relatively cheaply nation wide. At the same time there was a surge in computer purchase and use. PC Bangs sprung up like weeds. Unfortunately, most owners and operators had little understanding or concern of computer security. Few had anti-virus software, or kept it updated if it was pre-installed. Few installed the security patch updates and even if they wanted to many couldn't because their operating system was a pirated copy. Hence they were wide open to be hacked and hijacked.

It was evident even 10 years ago. So many computers from Korea became zombie SPAM distributors that you couldn't reliably send email from a Korean ISP to the States. Many State-side ISPs would automatically flag email from a Korean ISP as SPAM.

Many of those computers are probably still hijacked or hijackable today.

By: Teadrinker

Teadrinker — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 03:36:03 +0000

"Get those three computer science majors off their arse and down to the local PC-Bang.."

Clearly, I meant three North Korean websites, not three South Korean students.

By: Hamilton

Hamilton — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 02:53:07 +0000

IT IS GO TIME! Time to fight fire with fire, someone hack the Jonger's AOL Account. That will shut down the other NDC members and force them to use the faxes the rest of the nK military uses.

By: maui

maui — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 02:20:15 +0000

A counter-attack into NK would be limited at best.

1. NK doesn't have the density of personally owner computers as ROK or US, so infecting a system to become a zombie system is pretty limited.

2. So if you don't have a bunch of system "inside" there telecom enclave you be left with a direct attack on their main "pipe" which they control (ie block) incoming attacks.

3. Also what affect you that make on them…

Oh wait that you mean ole four-eyed mop top couldn't pull down his goat porn . Get those three computer science majors off their arse and down to the local PC-Bang..