Warning on North Korea cyber army

WHILE the world has obsessed over North Korea’s rapidly advancing nuclear and weapons programmes, Pyongyang has silently built a sophisticated cyber army capable of plundering international banks, military espionage, and wreaking havoc on critical infrastructure.

The US and British governments confirmed on Tuesday what many had suspected – that North Korea was behind May’s WannaCry ransomware attack, which affected more than 230 000 computers in 150-plus countries, costing billions and causing huge disruption to the UK’s National Health Service.

The announcement came on the back of suspected North Korean hacks on a South Korean cryptocurrency exchange, where at least $7-million (R89-million) worth of digital money was stolen and one company, Youbit, was forced into bankruptcy.

Observers have warned that Pyongyang’s most credible threat to global security may lie not in its progress towards building a nucleartipped warhead capable of reaching the US mainland, but in its formidable cyber prowess.

For a decade, Pyongyang has covertly trained an estimated 6 000 cyber warriors, creating a low-cost online army capable of creating total chaos in an interconnected world.

Meanwhile, the isolated regime’s lack of connectivity protects it from retaliatory attacks, creating an almost perfect weapon.

The US blamed the Lazarus Group, a hacking entity working on behalf of Pyongyang.

Britain also publicly named the Lazarus Group on Tuesday as responsible for the WannaCry campaign.

“We condemn these actions and commit ourselves to working with all responsible states to combat destructive criminal use of cyber space,” the Foreign Office said.

Pyongyang denies all accusations.