{"id":75267,"date":"2017-10-19T17:03:31","date_gmt":"2017-10-19T23:03:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/samuelson-north-korea-growing-more-adept-at-cyber-warfare\/"},"modified":"2017-10-19T23:03:31","modified_gmt":"2017-10-19T23:03:31","slug":"samuelson-north-korea-growing-more-adept-at-cyber-warfare","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/samuelson-north-korea-growing-more-adept-at-cyber-warfare\/","title":{"rendered":"Samuelson: North Korea growing more adept at cyber warfare"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Robert
Robert Samuelson<\/span>du1-i-syn<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Launched largely anonymously, cyberattacks can cripple essential infrastructure \u2013 power grids, financial networks, transportation systems \u2013 and inflict social disorder and political anarchy. Immediate retaliation is difficult.<\/p>\n

All this now seems plausible.<\/p>\n

Until recently, cybersecurity experts dismissed North Korea\u2019s attack capabilities. It was too backward to pose a serious threat. No more.<\/p>\n

In a lengthy front-page story on Oct. 16, The New York Times reported that cybersecurity experts admit that they underestimated North Korea, which has now been tied to some major cyberattacks. This includes the heist of an estimated $81 million of funds from the central bank of Bangladesh.<\/p>\n

The Times\u2019 story ought to command everyone\u2019s attention. It alters the military balance between the United States and North Korea, and not favorably for the United States. Written by journalists David Sanger, David Kirkpatrick and Nicole Perlroth, the article reported that North Korea has more than 6,000 hackers whose performance is \u201cundeniably improving,\u201d according to American and British security experts.<\/p>\n

North Korea \u201ccan hold large swaths of nation-state infrastructure and private-sector infrastructure at risk,\u201d said former deputy director of the National Security Agency Chris Inglis.<\/p>\n

In part, the North Koreans were instructed and encouraged by Iran, the Times said. But mostly, their gains reflected persistence.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow can such an isolated, backward country have this capability?\u201d asked a former British government official. Well, how can such an isolated backward country have this nuclear ability?<\/p>\n

In the Times story, the late North Korean leader Kim Jong Il is quoted, based on the testimony of a defector, as saying in 2003: \u201cIf warfare was about bullets and oil until now \u2026 warfare in the 21st century is about information.\u201d<\/p>\n

Here are some other takeaways from the article:<\/p>\n

The goal in the Bangladesh heist was to divert $1 billion through electronic fund transfers. A clerical error stopped most of the transfer.<\/p>\n

Still, North Korea allegedly reaped $81 million and earns up to $1 billion annually from ransomware and other digital techniques.<\/p>\n

North Korea was behind the so-called WannaCry hack \u2013 one of the largest to date \u2013 in May. The ransomware attack shut down hospitals in Britain and affected \u201cbanks and transportation systems across dozens of countries.\u201d Another fortuitous discovery of a software error shut down the hack.<\/p>\n

North Korea is reported to have penetrated South Korea\u2019s military computers \u201cto steal war plans.\u201d It may also have planted \u201csleeper cells\u201d in South Korea that, in the event of war, \u201ccould be activated to paralyze power supplies and military command and control networks.\u201d<\/p>\n

By the Times\u2019 telling, North Korea\u2019s capabilities go well beyond its angry response to the 2014 movie satire, \u201cThe Interview,\u201d when it hacked Sony Pictures, the studio that produced the movie.<\/p>\n

Still, North Korea continues to resort to hacks to deter criticism of Kim.<\/p>\n

Just how the United States can react to North Korea\u2019s cyberprowess is unclear. According to the Times, \u201cHundreds, if not thousands, of American cyberwarriors spend each day mapping the North\u2019s few networks, looking for vulnerabilities that could be activated in time of crisis.\u201d<\/p>\n

By some accounts, the United States has planted sleeper cells in North Korea\u2019s networks.<\/p>\n

But the United States is constrained by its huge commitment to the internet. We are more dependent on the web than the North Koreans. In practice, this means that we are more vulnerable to attacks on it. More systems can be shut down and crippled than in North Korea.<\/p>\n

Americans think that technological superiority works to our benefit. Here, the opposite may be true.<\/p>\n

Robert Samuelson is a columnist for The Washington Post. \u00a9 2017 The Washington Post Writers Group<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Samuelsondu1-i-syn Launched largely anonymously, cyberattacks can cripple essential infrastructure \u2013 power grids, financial networks, transportation systems \u2013 and inflict social disorder and political anarchy. Immediate retaliation is difficult. All this now seems plausible. Until recently, cybersecurity experts dismissed North Korea\u2019s attack capabilities. It was too backward to pose a serious threat. No more. In […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":75268,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[125],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-75267","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-newsletter-opinion"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75267","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=75267"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75267\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/75268"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75267"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=75267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}