The Internet citizens in the isolated country of North Korea did see quite a bit of connectivity problems the last few days. On several days, almost every single website intermittently went offline en masse. This took place on every site- which also included the booking site for its Air Koryo.
Incidentally, this site also served as the official portal for the government of the country. The hermit kingdom also saw one of the main accesses to the networks temporarily paralyzed. This inevitably cut the link between North Korea and the rest of the world.
Internet Hacktivists- What Do They Do?
A few watchers in the country believe this was the work of a hacker from any foreign government. As it stands, North Kore had just gone through its series of missile tests. So, one wouldn’t exactly go amiss believing that a rogue hacker wanted the country to stop rattling the internet.
But interestingly, the internet outage in the country isn’t the work of either the USA Cyber Command or any other state agency. Rather, this has been the work of an everyday hacker.
But why? What possible animosity could a hacker in the United States have against the entire country? As it stands, this hacker, who goes by the handle P4x was himself hacked by North Korean spies. He was just one of the many victims in a hacking campaign. This campaign had targeted most of the Western security researchers with the aim of stealing hacking tools. Although they couldn’t steal anything from this hacker- and he couldn’t just let this slide, could he? (1)
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A Lone Internet Hacker’s Journey For Vengeance
According to information gained by Wired, P4x simply wanted to send a message to the North Korean government.
“I want them to understand that if they come at us, it means some of your infrastructures is going down for a while.” But this raises another question- why did he take so much time to avenge? The espionage and hacking from North Korea took place in January last year.
The only plausible answer would be that he took his time to make sure they were no mistakes. After he performed a penetration against the infrastructure systems of North Korea- he had everything at his disposal. These internet vulnerabilities were situated in routers and servers that hadn’t been patched in a long time. Also, these faulty routers and servers were largely responsible for connecting the country with the rest of the world. P4x believes that his actions were righteous and necessary.
He states that “if they don’t see that we have teeth, it is just going to keep coming.”
Incidentally, his hackathon might not be stopping anytime soon. The same Wired article mentioned that the hacker may “try actually hacking into North Korean systems” which would then be used to “steal information and share it with authorities and experts.”
The Moral And Ethical Constraints Behind Internet Hacktivism- Is It Worth It?
But Ian Thornton-Trump, the current chief information security with intelligence firm Cyjax, doesn’t think this is the correct approach. He states, “Online vigilantism or hacktivism is a dangerous game to begin with, and against a nation-state it is foolhardy.”
He goes on to mention that “If you poke Hidden Cobra with a cyber stick, I hope the real cobra does not sink its fangs deep into you.” With North Korea lacking the moral and ethical constraints within its cyber command, retaliation can be expected. (2)
Read: If Your iPhone Has a Green Dot in iOS 14, Your Camera May Be Spying On You
What Seems To Be The Present Course Of Action?
The last decade has seen a rise of hackers who have donned the role of activists after situations arose. In this avatar, they have the power to expose facts, speak the truth, and even stop army attempts near borders. While the internet actions of P4x aren’t on any moral high ground, they have any personal reason to go through with it. Although the corrupt file he received from the North Korean spies didn’t harm his computer, there was a possibility that it could.
It was pure luck that the hacker opened the file on a virtual machine. Also, the hacker wasn’t convinced or assuaged by the actions of the Feds either. Almost a year has gone by, and the hacker still has to hear of any action taken against the North Korean hackers. Since there hasn’t even been any formal acknowledgment of the attack, the hacker deemed it to be his responsibility to do so.
According to the report published by Wired, only a minority in North Korea have access to the internet. This implies that P4x’s actions haven’t hampered the rest of the population. The only people who have been bothered are officials in the current regime. Needless to say, P4x is quite happy with this. In fact, he has plans of securing a team of hacktivists, who would help him out. They would all pinpoint their attack on North Korea and steal data from the websites. (3)
Keep Reading: Facebook Says It’s Your Fault That Hackers Got Half a Billion User Phone Numbers
Sources
- “North Korea Hacked Him. So He Took Down Its Internet.” Wired. February 2, 2022.
- “One American Hacker Suddenly Took Down North Korea’s Internet—All Of It.” Forbes. Davey Winder. February 5, 2022.
- “North Korea attacks a US hacker. So he shuts down the whole country’s internet.” Interesting Engineering. Ameya Paleja. February 4, 2022.