14 DAY TRIAL // Websites and services based in North Korea experienced major connectivity issues this morning, as a result of what some people call a hack attack possibly launched by the United States.
While there's no proof that the United States might actually be behind this new wave of attacks aimed against North Korea, Doug Madory, director of Internet analysis at Dyn Research, said in a statement that such outages were not at all that common and he would be “surprised if [North Koreans] are absorbing some sort of attacks.”
The graph below shows the connectivity issues experienced by North Korean web-based services this morning, and according to local sources, access to most websites has already been regained and the country's WWW is now restoring following this new wave of attacks.
According to the BBC, authorities in Pyongyang haven't yet confirmed the attacks or the recovery following this outage, but both South Korea and the United States said that North Korean online activity came back to normal a few hours ago.
China and the US possibly behind the attacks
Even though North Korea has remained completely tight-lipped on the cause of the downtime, local sources claim that China and the United States are believed to be behind possible attacks, with the latter most likely seeking revenge after the recent “The Interview” saga.
A group of North Korean hackers hacked Sony and forced the company not to launch “The Interview” movie in which the Pyongyang leader Kim Jong-un is assassinated with CIA support.
After hackers threatened Sony and the United States with terrorist attacks if the movie was released, the American movie producing firm decided to cancel the premiere and is now reportedly considering launching it completely free of charge online.
The United States is thus believed to be involved in the attacks against North Korea as a way to take revenge, but American officials have not yet commented on this case.
President Obama: We will respond to North Korea's attacks on Sony
Sony's hack quickly became a national problem in the United States, and President Barack Obama himself explained that America wouldn't just sit and watch North Korea attack its companies, servers, and citizens.
Instead, Obama explained that “we will respond to North Korean's attacks on Sony,” but refused to provide any other details on what this response would actually include.
“We cannot have a society in which some dictator someplace can start imposing censorship here in the United States,” he stated.
“If somebody is going to be able to intimidate folks out of releasing a satirical movie, imagine what will happen when they see a documentary they don't like,” Obama added. “And imagine what will happen when producers start engaging in self-censorship so that they don't offend the sensibilities of someone whose sensibilities probably need to be offended.”
Until now, there's no official confirmation regarding the source of this new wave of attacks in North Korea, but statements from involved countries are expected in the coming hours, so we'll update the article when more info is released.
