WAS NORTH KOREA’S CYBER-ATTACK ABETTED BY SOUTH KOREANS?

The Pyongyang regime caught American and South Korean officials completely by surprise with a shocking cyber-offensive that disabled or slowed down computers ranging from:

• the office of South Korean President Lee Myung-bak - who is regularly excoriated in the North Korean media as a “traitor” and “lackey” of the U.S.
• the Defense and Foreign Ministries, the country’s leading banks, and the conservative Chosun Ilbo, South Korea’s biggest selling newspaper.
• In the United States, computer security researchers told the Washington Post that the attacks primarily targeted Internet sites operated by major government agencies, including the departments of Homeland Security and Defense, the Federal Aviation Administration and the Federal Trade Commission.

Fears about the purpose and origins of the cyber-offensive grew after South Korea’s National Intelligence Service reported suspicions that “North Korea or its sympathizers” were masterminding the attack on South Korean websites.

As the offensive intensified on Thursday, the question was whether North Korea’s cyber-terror experts were receiving a powerful assist from South Korean activists who view the country’s conservative leadership as a bigger menace than the government led by the ailing Kim Jong-Il in North Korea.

With major websites down or operating at extremely slow rates, the suspicion was that they were being attacked with data surges from sources inside South Korea. North Korea has in recent years developed the sophistication needed to penetrate South Korean websites, but it is believed to have had assistance from South Korean radicals.

One reason that North Korean cyber-warfare has focused more on South Korea than on the U.S. is because of the assistance that the North can count on from South Korean radicals who are highly skilled in hacking. Another is that it could plant doubts among many in the South about the wisdom of its close alliance with the U.S..

“The purpose is to make the U.S. alliance seem like a liability rather than a benefit,” said Eberstadt. Eberstadt conjured the image of a worst-case scenario in which North Korea ultimately staged artillery and missile attacks on major American bases in South Korea in tandem with a full-scale cyber-offensive.

This week’scyber-attack coincided with release of a brief video on North Korean television showing Dear Leader Kim Jong-il looking thin and weak after limping slightly to his place at a memorial on the 15th anniversary of the death of his father, long-ruling Kim Il-sung. Kim Jong-il is believed to have suffered a stroke last August and in recent months has been grooming one of his three sons, the youngest, still in his 20s, to succeed him.

The cyber-offensive burst into international headlines just as American officials were patting themselves on the back for having successfully pressured North Korea into calling back a small freighter called the Kang Nam I as it steamed south down the coast of China. North Korean authorities apparently decided they would prefer not to risk inspection of its cargo at refueling ports on the way or embarrassment on arriving at Myanmar. Analysts believe North Korea will try again and what happens next time will be very important.

Some analysts, however, believe the U.S. response revealed the weakness of efforts to stop North Korean proliferation.

“The reluctance to board the ship shows the loophole in the UN resolution,” said Bruce Klinger of the conservative Heritage Foundation in Washington. “You have the sleek John McCain unable to contain the Gulliver Kang Nam.”

But, if U.S. forces were to board a ship the United States would be in violation of international law. And if the ship turned out to have no military cargo on board, he says, the U.S. would have difficulty justifying more boardings under any circumstances.

No one rules out that North Korea was dangling bait in front of the USS John McCain, challenging the U.S. to act.

On the other hand North Korea’s July 4^th missile test failed to get much attention and was a propaganda flop.

The string of episodes from missile test to the Gulliverian match between the US Navy and a tramp steamer to its cyber-attacks is simply the latest, bizarre chapter in North Korea’s comic book-like history. Obviously absent its nuclear weapons North Korea would be just another backward, third rate dictatorship.

It is just that disproportionate attention that the Iranian regime is counting on as it relentlessly advances its own nuclear weapon ambitions that it believes will catapault it to the front row among nations because it could plug into the Persian Gulf’s oil supply.