Heck, who needs nuclear ballistic-missile launching submarines when you can destroy the United States via a keyboard in your very own underground bunker, right?:
North Korea has about 6,000 trained military hackers whose skills can be used to launch attacks that can destroy an enemy's critical infrastructure or kill people, a defector revealed in an exclusive BBC article Friday.
"The reason North Korea has been harassing other countries is to demonstrate that North Korea has cyber war capacity," Professor Kim Heung-Kwang told BBC Click. "Their cyberattacks could have similar impacts as military attacks, killing people and destroying cities."
Kim's warning followed last year's hack of Sony Pictures, whose computer systems were attacked in hopes of thwarting the release of the Seth Rogen comedy The Interview, and he said international organizations should step in before the attacks escalate.
However, Korean technology expert Martyn Williams told the BBC the increased threats are only theoretical.
"Theoretical"? I don't think Sony would agree with you, Marty.
Pop quiz: To whom would you attribute more credibility on the matter of NoKo cyberwarfare capabilities? A poseur Westerner or a man who actually worked in close proximity to them? I don't know about y'all, but I'll go with Professor Kim.
As do the SoKos:
South Korea earlier this year said North Korea was behind an attack on its Hydro and Nuclear Power Plant. Kim said the nuclear plant was not compromised, but had the computer system controlling the nuclear reactor been, "the consequences could be unimaginably severe and cause extensive casualties."
According to Professor Kim, the Norks not only have six thousand cyberwarriors, but as much as a fifth of their entire military budget is devoted to Bureau 121, their mode of "spreading the glorious revolution" or whatever. And, as you no doubt suspected, Bureau 121 is based in....Red China, since the infrastructure of a tree-bark level economy is probably not sufficient to support twenty-first century war-fighting, and makes it functionally impossible to isolate them from the rest of the 'Net.
Even better, the NoKos are building their own version of the Stuxnet virus, with which to destroy multiple enemy cities (Why would they do it any other way?) by any number of different means. Or perhaps they'll just target our military nets and be done with it.
Where Professor Kim's credibility crumbles is in his proposed remedy: tattling on North Korea to the U.N. Human Rights Council (run by Pyongyang's good friends and nuclear and missile customers, the Iranians) and other U.N. agencies. A recommendation so mind-bendingly lame it isn't even worth ridiculing.
Here's hoping U.S. Cyber Command has updated its anti-virus firewalls and still subscribes to the doctrine of pre-emption. Otherwise, we're going to have a lot bigger problems on our hands than having to listen to cheesy music 24/7.
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