On Dec. 21st, 2011, Taylor Armerding wrote for Network World, and posed an interesting question: will the death of the Dear Leader lead to an assertion of N. Korean power via cyberattack? Some are worried that Kim Jong Un's transition to power might bring chaos, or at the very least, may be accompanied by a show of force. Although I'm no expert on N. Korea, shows of force seem to be their modus operandi: I can think of the Cheonan sinking, the shelling of Yeonpyeong Island, and the murder of 115 people aboard Korean Flight 858 off the top of my head. How do we get to cyberattacks though?
Well, the article notes that the Korea Communications Commission (KCC) "raised the cyber alert to the third-highest level over the weekend and stepped up monitoring on DDOS attacks." The article then quoted a cyberexpert who believes that this step amounts to "a strong probability" of cyberattack.
The article went on two cite two cyber-experts with differing opinions. One cyber-expert believes that the N. Koreans may have the means and motivation to use a cyberattack as a show of force. The other cyber expert believes that the N. Korean's don't possess anything more sophisticated than DDOS attacks (I seriously doubt this), and rather than worrying about N. Korean cyberattack, the US should "be wringing our hands over the fact that they can't even feed their own people…"
…well, at least one N. Korean citizen is well fed.
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The source article can be found here.
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