The Dprk As an Example of the Potential Utility of Internet Sanctions
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North Korean Cyber Capabilities: in Brief
North Korean Cyber Capabilities: In Brief Emma Chanlett-Avery Specialist in Asian Affairs Liana W. Rosen Specialist in International Crime and Narcotics John W. Rollins Specialist in Terrorism and National Security Catherine A. Theohary Specialist in National Security Policy, Cyber and Information Operations August 3, 2017 Congressional Research Service 7-5700 www.crs.gov R44912 North Korean Cyber Capabilities: In Brief Overview As North Korea has accelerated its missile and nuclear programs in spite of international sanctions, Congress and the Trump Administration have elevated North Korea to a top U.S. foreign policy priority. Legislation such as the North Korea Sanctions and Policy Enhancement Act of 2016 (P.L. 114-122) and international sanctions imposed by the United Nations Security Council have focused on North Korea’s WMD and ballistic missile programs and human rights abuses. According to some experts, another threat is emerging from North Korea: an ambitious and well-resourced cyber program. North Korea’s cyberattacks have the potential not only to disrupt international commerce, but to direct resources to its clandestine weapons and delivery system programs, potentially enhancing its ability to evade international sanctions. As Congress addresses the multitude of threats emanating from North Korea, it may need to consider responses to the cyber aspect of North Korea’s repertoire. This would likely involve multiple committees, some of which operate in a classified setting. This report will provide a brief summary of what unclassified open-source reporting has revealed about the secretive program, introduce four case studies in which North Korean operators are suspected of having perpetrated malicious operations, and provide an overview of the international finance messaging service that these hackers may be exploiting. -
The Evolution of North Korean Cyber Threats
The Evolution of North Korean Cyber Threats 2019-03 Chong Woo Kim, Senior Fellow The Asan Institute for Policy Studies Carolina Polito1 University of Bologna 2019.02.19 Introduction In North Korea, only a few people are allowed access to Kwangmyong, the national intranet service, as global internet access is restricted to a group of selected people, and the country has one of the weakest internet infrastructures in the world.2 Nonetheless, North Korea is a formidable cyber power, standing alongside major players like the United States, China, Russia, the United Kingdom, Israel and Iran.3 North Korea has been increasing resources to enhance and expand its cyber capabilities, as testified by the intensification of the regime-sponsored attacks that the world has witnessed in the last 10 years. Amongst the most blatant offensive cyber-attacks allegedly linked to hacker groups close to North Korea are the Sony Pictures attack, the WannaCry attack, and the DarkSeoul attack, despite the North’s constant denial of any involvement with these attacks or the damage suffered by them. North Korea’s cyber army consists of approximately 7,000 hackers,4 performing a wide range of activities including theft, denial of service (DDoS), espionage and sabotage. 5 These types of operations have proved to be very useful as part of North Korea’s asymmetric strategy towards the ROK-U.S. Combined Forces Command. Cyber operations are low-cost and low-risk, allowing North Korea to counter countries which have highly computer-dependent infrastructure, with little fear of retaliation. Due to their low-intensity, these attacks often lie beneath the threshold of an armed attack, reducing the risk of escalating the conflict to an unaffordable level. -
Vp01 16¢63뼉 Olor
Discontinuance of Publication To our readers, First and foremost, I, as the president of Yonhap News Agency, would like to give our readers many thanks for the deep interest shown in our Vantage Point magazine for many years. With your great interest and encouragement, Yonhap has done its utmost to make Vantage Point, South Korea's sole North Korea-only monthly in English, a quality magazine over the years. However, Yonhap has very regrettably decided to discontinue the publication of the maga- zine, making the January issue in 2016 its last. This discontinuance, however, will never mean weakening Yonhap’s North Korea news ser- vice. On the contrary, Yonhap, as a leading news agency in South Korea, has the grave obligation to play a part in helping materialize the Korean people’s ardent wish for the reunification of the Korean Peninsula by providing our readers at home and abroad with accurate news on the reality of the communist North and the South Korean government’s North Korea policy. Hence, Yonhap promises to continuously meet our Vantage Point readers’ keen interest in and high demand for stories on Korean Peninsula issues by providing you with a quicker, fairer, more accurate and stronger North Korean news service via its Web page (www.yonhapnews.co.kr). I would like to express my deep appreciation to our faithful readers once again, and hope you will continuously maintain interest in Korean issues down the road. Best regards, Park No-hwang President-publisher Yonhap News Agency 폐간사 독자여러분들에게, 우선 그동안 연합뉴스 Vantage Point를 애독해주신 독자 여러분들에게 깊은 감사의 말씀을 드립니다 그동안 연합뉴스는 독자 여러분들의 높은 관심과 격려 속에서 한국의 유일한 북한 전문 영문월간지인 Vantage Point를 품격있는 잡지로 만들기 위해 최선 을 다해왔습니다. -
An Assessment of North Korean Threats and Vulnerabilities in Cyberspace
BearWorks MSU Graduate Theses Fall 2017 An Assessment of North Korean Threats and Vulnerabilities in Cyberspace Jeremiah van Rossum Missouri State University, [email protected] As with any intellectual project, the content and views expressed in this thesis may be considered objectionable by some readers. However, this student-scholar’s work has been judged to have academic value by the student’s thesis committee members trained in the discipline. The content and views expressed in this thesis are those of the student-scholar and are not endorsed by Missouri State University, its Graduate College, or its employees. Follow this and additional works at: https://bearworks.missouristate.edu/theses Part of the Defense and Security Studies Commons Recommended Citation van Rossum, Jeremiah, "An Assessment of North Korean Threats and Vulnerabilities in Cyberspace" (2017). MSU Graduate Theses. 3212. https://bearworks.missouristate.edu/theses/3212 This article or document was made available through BearWorks, the institutional repository of Missouri State University. The work contained in it may be protected by copyright and require permission of the copyright holder for reuse or redistribution. For more information, please contact [email protected]. AN ASSESSMENT OF NORTH KOREAN THREATS AND VULNERABILITIES IN CYBERSPACE A Master’s Thesis Presented to The Graduate College of Missouri State University In Partial Fulfillment Of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Science, Defense and Strategic Studies By Jeremiah Adam van Rossum December 2017 Copyright 2017 by Jeremiah Adam van Rossum ii AN ASSESSMENT OF NORTH KOREAN THREATS AND VULNERABILITIES IN CYBERSPACE Defense and Strategic Studies Missouri State University, December 2017 Master of Science Jeremiah Adam van Rossum ABSTRACT This thesis answers the fundamental questions of what North Korean capabilities and intent in cyberspace are and what North Korean threats and vulnerabilities are associated with these. -
"Splinternet" – Danger for Our Citizens, Businesses and Society?
"Splinternet" – Danger for our citizens, businesses and society? Once upon a time, there was the World Wide Web (www). Just as it was invented by Sir Tim Berners-Lee. John Perry Barlow wrote the "Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace" in 1996. The Internet was a great promise of freedom. It worked like a continuation of the Gutenberg invention, the printing press: the Internet gave a voice to all citizens whose views and attitudes were suppressed by the media and elites. This had and has great political consequences. 30 years later the opinion about the internet changed: It was thought that monopoly companies like Google, Facebook, etc. control Big Data and Artificial Intelligence, and therefore control us. However, politics followed suit and began to regulate. The concern now is that the state will disenfranchise citizens and restrict companies. There is a fear of new totalitarian regimes. And in this situation, the Internet ("splinternet") is increasingly fragmented. National "Internet" networks are emerging. States treat the Internet as an extension of their national territory. The most recent example is Russia, where Kremlin laws ensure that national Internet traffic goes through state nodes and the state has the right to shut down the global Internet: a sort of digital Iron Curtain. The champion of the national Internet is China. The state monitors and controls Internet content, blocks foreign services and companies (like Facebook) and replaces them with national services and companies that are in line with the Communist Party. The "Great Firewall" is successful. The number of states imitating China's Internet policy is growing: Iran, North Korea, Cuba, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, but also Thailand and Vietnam etc. -
Blas, Zach. 2016. Contra-Internet. E-Flux Journal, 74, ISSN 2164-1625
Blas, Zach. 2016. Contra-Internet. e-flux journal, 74, ISSN 2164-1625 [Article] https://research.gold.ac.uk/id/eprint/18595/ The version presented here may differ from the published, performed or presented work. Please go to the persistent GRO record above for more information. If you believe that any material held in the repository infringes copyright law, please contact the Repository Team at Goldsmiths, University of London via the following email address: [email protected]. The item will be removed from the repository while any claim is being investigated. For more information, please contact the GRO team: [email protected] Zach Blas 1 of 5 e-flux journal #74 (2016) CONTRA-INTERNET 1. Killing the Internet On January 28th, 2011, only a few days after protests had broken out in Egypt demanding the overthrow of then President Hosni Mubarak, the Egyptian government terminated national access to the internet. This state-sponsored shutdown became known as flipping the internet’s“kill switch.” Intentions motivating the killing of the internet in Egypt were to block protestors from coordinating with one another and the dissemination of any media about the uprising, especially to those outside of the country. Peculiarly, it is a death that only lasted five days, as internet access was soon reinstated. More precisely, the internet kill switch unfolded as a series of political demands and technical operations. Egyptian Internet Service Providers, such as Telecom Egypt, Raya, and Link Egypt, were ordered to cancel their routing services, which had the effect of stymying internet connectivity through these major companies. -
Monday, November 28, 2016 the Opening of the North Korean Mind Pyongyang Versus the Digital Underground Jieun Baek
12/2/2016 The Opening of the North Korean Mind Home > The Opening of the North Korean Mind Monday, November 28, 2016 The Opening of the North Korean Mind Pyongyang Versus the Digital Underground Jieun Baek JIEUN BAEK is the author of North Korea’s Hidden Revolution: How the Information Underground Is Transforming a Closed Society (Yale University Press, 2016), from which this essay is adapted. From 2014 to 2016, she was a Fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University. Follow her on Twitter @JieunBaek1. On a cold, clear night in September 2014, a man I’ll call Ahn walked up to the edge of the Tumen River on the Chinese side of the heavily guarded border between China and North Korea. At its narrowest points, the Tumen measures a little over 150 feet wide, and Ahn could easily see the North Korean side from where he stood. In two bags, he was carrying 100 USB drives filled with films, television shows, music, and ebooks from around the world. Almost anywhere else, such material would be considered completely innocuous. At this border, however, it constitutes highly illicit, dangerous contraband. In the totalitarian state of North Korea, citizens are allowed to see and hear only those media products created or sanctioned by the government. Pyongyang considers foreign information of any kind a threat and expends great effort keeping it out. The regime’s primary fear is that exposure to words, images, and sounds from the outside world could make North Koreans disillusioned with the state of affairs in their own country, which could lead them to desire—or even demand—change. -
1:14-Mc-00648-UNA Document 7 Filed 07/29/14 Page 1 of 3
Case 1:14-mc-00648-UNA Document 7 Filed 07/29/14 Page 1 of 3 IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA Ruth Calderon-Cardona, et al., ) ) Plaintiffs, ) ) v. ) CIVIL ACTION NO. 14-mc-648 ) Democratic People's Republic of Korea, et ) HEARING REQUEST al., ) ) Defendants. ) ) ) INTERNET CORPORATION FOR ASSIGNED NAME AND NUMBERS’ MOTION TO QUASH WRIT OF ATTACHMENT The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (“ICANN”), a non-party, by counsel, respectfully moves this Court to quash the Writ of Attachment on Judgment Other Than Wages, Salary And Commissions (“Writ of Attachment”) issued by Plaintiffs in the above- entitled action, for the reasons set forth in ICANN’s accompanying Memorandum.1 Furthermore, ICANN, in accordance with Local Civil Rule 78.1, requests that an oral hearing be scheduled to inform the Court’s ruling on the Motion. 1 Plaintiffs issued to ICANN, and ICANN is moving to quash, writs of attachment in seven actions: (1) Rubin, et al. v. Islamic Republic of Iran, et al., Case No. 01-1655-RMU; (2) Haim, et al. v. Islamic Republic of Iran, et al., Case No. 02-1811-RCL; (3) Haim, et al. v. Islamic Republic of Iran, et al., Case No. 08-520-RCL; (4) Stern, et al. v. Islamic Republic of Iran, et al., Case No. 00-2602-RCL; (5) Weinstein, et al. v. Islamic Republic of Iran, et al., Case No. 00- 2601-RCL; (6) Wyatt, et al. v. Syrian Arab Republic, et al., Case No. 08-502-RCL; and (7) Calderon-Cardona, et al. -
Generic Top-Level Domains (Gtld)
An essential pillar for any business is its brand. Brand presence on the Web is a key factor in a business appearing in Internet searches and being found by existing and prospective customers. For small business owners, the essential ingredients for building a strong brand are: o A memorable business name o brand identity elements: o domain name o logo o email address o business card o social Web presence ( Linkedin, Facebook, Twitter, et Generic Top-Level Domains (gTLD) The following table represents the generic top-level domains (i.e. including .com, .org, etc). Domain Purpose / Sponsoring Organization Generic top-level domain .COM VeriSign Global Registry Services Generic top-level domain .INFO Afilias Limited Generic top-level domain .NET VeriSign Global Registry Services Generic top-level domain .ORG Public Interest Registry (PIR) Generic-Restricted Top-Level Domains Generic-restricted top-level domain names are similar to the generic top-level domains, only eligibility is intended to be restricted and ascertained more stringently. Domain Purpose / Sponsoring Organization Restricted for Business .BIZ NeuStar, Inc. Reserved for individuals .NAME The Global Name Registry Ltd. Restricted to credentialed professionals and related entities .PRO Registry Services Corporation dba RegistryPro Sponsored Top-Level Domains (sTLD) These domains are proposed and sponsored by private agencies or organizations that establish and enforce rules restricting the eligibility to use the TLD. IANA also groups sTLDs with the generic top-level domains. Domain Purpose / Sponsoring Organization Reserved for members of the air-transport industry .AERO Societe Internationale de Telecommunications Aeronautique S.C. (SITA SC) Restricted to the Pan-Asia and Asia Pacific community .ASIA DotAsia Organization Ltd. -
VBI Vulnerabilities Portfolio
VBI Vulnerabilities Portfolio October 28, 2013 <[email protected]> http://www.vulnbroker.com/ CONFIDENTIAL VBI Vulnerabilities Portfolio Contents 1 Foreword 6 1.1 Document Formatting.................................... 6 1.2 Properties and Definitions.................................. 6 1.2.1 Vulnerability Properties............................ 6 1.2.2 Vulnerability Test Matrix........................... 8 1.2.3 Exploit Properties............................... 8 2 Adobe Systems Incorporated 12 2.1 Flash Player......................................... 12 VBI-12-033 Adobe Flash Player Client-side Remote Code Execution........... 12 2.2 Photoshop CS6....................................... 15 VBI-13-011 Adobe Photoshop CS6 Client-side Remote Code Execution......... 15 3 Apple, Inc. 17 3.1 iOS.............................................. 17 VBI-12-036 Apple iOS Remote Forced Access-Point Association............. 17 VBI-12-037 Apple iOS Remote Forced Firmware Update Avoidance........... 18 4 ASUS 21 4.1 BIOS Device Driver..................................... 21 VBI-13-015 ASUS BIOS Device Driver Local Privilege Escalation............ 22 5 AVAST Software a.s. 24 5.1 avast! Anti-Virus...................................... 24 October 28, 2013 CONFIDENTIAL Page 1 of 120 VBI Vulnerabilities Portfolio VBI-13-005 avast! Local Information Disclosure..................... 24 VBI-13-010 avast! Anti-Virus Local Privilege Escalation................. 26 6 Barracuda Networks, Inc. 28 6.1 Web Filter.......................................... 28 VBI-13-000 -
Digital Methods for Circumventing UN Sanctions a Case Study of the Democratic People’S Republic of Korea’S Cyber Force
Compliance & Capacity Skills International, LLC Sanctions Practitioners 12 July 2019 Compliance Trainers Digital Methods for Circumventing UN Sanctions A Case Study of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea’s Cyber Force By Ashley Taylor Introduction The cyber sphere is a new frontline in the implementation and circumvention of UN sanctions. Because the Internet provides a virtual space for instantaneous communication and transaction, it inherently opens cheaper and unregulated avenues for rogue actors to violate international norms. Illicit uses of digital technologies outpace the advancements of licit technologists, who generally do not prioritize international security in their business. The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) in particular has become increasingly adept at employing digital tools to circumvent sanctions. They have developed digital techniques to generate revenues to fund their illegal proliferation efforts, gain intelligence and technical know- how, and harm the business and reputation of their foreign adversaries, including to disrupt those that monitor the implementation of the DPRK sanctions regime adopted with UN resolution 1718 in October 2006. Kim Jong-un recently boasted that “cyber warfare, along with nuclear weapons and missiles, is an ‘all-purpose sword’ that guarantees our military’s capability to strike relentlessly."1 A North Korean military defector has reported that the cyber force is viewed as the strongest weapon in the “Secret War”2 and its members are considered part of the elite, being one of few well-paid positions. Where will they go from here? Evidence suggests that North Korean state actors and non-state proxies are increasingly making use of new anonymizing technologies like cryptocurrencies, the dark web, encryption, and advanced hard-to-detect cyberattacks. -
North Korea Security Briefing
Companion report HP Security Briefing Episode 16, August 2014 Profiling an enigma: The mystery of North Korea’s cyber threat landscape HP Security Research Table of Contents Introduction .................................................................................................................................................... 3 Research roadblocks ...................................................................................................................................... 4 Ideological and political context .................................................................................................................... 5 Juche and Songun ...................................................................................................................................... 5 Tension and change on the Korean Peninsula .......................................................................................... 8 North Korean cyber capabilities and limitations ......................................................................................... 10 North Korean infrastructure.................................................................................................................... 10 An analysis of developments in North Korean cyberspace since 2010 .................................................. 14 North Korean cyber war and intelligence structure ................................................................................ 21 North Korean cyber and intelligence organizational chart ....................................................................