by Lucas Modzelewski | Diggers Post
The New York Times has reported North Korean internet links have gone silent. After days of instability, it’s described as the worst North Korean network failure in years.
According to Doug Madory, the director of Internet analysis at Dyn Research, North Korea’s internet access first destabilized late on Friday, worsening over the weekend, and completely offline by Monday.
This comes days after Barack Obama pledged to respond to the hacking of Sony Pictures, which government officials claim traces to North Korea. The studio had produced a movie, The Interview, making light of North Korea and its leader, Kim Jong-un.
“This is consistent with a DDoS on their routers,” said Doug Madory, explaining that attackers would flood a network with so much traffic until it collapses. Since the country only officially has 1,024 IP addresses in comparison to the billions of US addresses, it’s plausible North Korea’s network could’ve been deliberately inundated with increasing traffic until it crashed.
The Pyongyang-based Star Joint Venture, which routes many connections through China Unicom, China’s state-owned telecommunications company, also manages North Korea’s IP addresses. It may come as no surprise that the United States government could be behind the blackout. The Obama administration did seek China’s help in blocking North Korea’s cyber attack capabilities.
This may be the “proportional response” Obama had promised.
