Subscribe free to our newsletters via your
. 24/7 Space News .




INTERNET SPACE
Web outage hardly stirs Internet-free N. Korea: experts
by Staff Writers
Seoul (AFP) Dec 24, 2014


S. Korea hacking suspect used China IP addresses: investigators
Seoul (AFP) Dec 24, 2014 - A suspect in the hacking attack on South Korean nuclear reactors has used multiple Internet protocol (IP) addresses based in China, investigators said Wednesday.

The defence ministry's cyber warfare unit has increased its watch level against attacks after the publication last week of a variety of information about the South's nuclear power plant operator on Twitter.

It included designs and manuals for two reactors, as well as personal information on some 10,000 workers at Korea Hydro and Nuclear Power (KHNP).

The suspected hacker worked from the northeastern Chinese city of Shenyang, according to a joint investigation team of government and prosecution officials quoted by Yonhap news agency.

An IP address, however, is not always a reliable guide to the nationality or geographical location of an Internet user.

The suspect has styled himself president of an anti-nuclear power activist group.

On Tuesday the hacker posted more information on Twitter, including four files of reactor-related information and what seemed to be blueprints of facilities, among other material.

The KHNP said the material released on the Gori and Wolsong nuclear power plants was not classified and would not affect safety.

The investigation team said it has also asked help from the FBI to look into the servers of US-based Twitter, Yonhap reported.

On Sunday the hacker threatened to release more information unless the government shut down three reactors at Gori and Wolsong from December 25.

Officials from the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy said the hacker would be unable physically to damage the reactors.

They said that the information released so far appeared to be from the power plants' operating system, which until April 2013 had been connected to the Internet, Yonhap reported.

But KHNP nevertheless launched a two-day drill Monday to test its ability to thwart a cyber attack, after the series of online leaks.

The drill came at a time of heightened concern about cyber crime after a crippling attack against Sony Pictures which both Seoul and Washington have blamed on North Korea.

There has been no indication that the North was behind the release of the nuclear material.

But Justice Minister Hwang Kyo-Ahn said Wednesday in parliament that investigators were looking into a possible cyber attack by North Korea.

"We are investigating whether North Korea is behind it," he said.

South Korea's 23 nuclear reactors supply about 30 percent of the country's electricity.

North Korea's Internet went down this week after an apparent attack but most of its citizens will not have noticed the difference in a country that does its level best to seal off foreign influence, experts say.

The mysterious blackout has hit the North since Monday night, after the US warned of a retaliation against Pyongyang's alleged hacking attack on Sony Pictures.

Pyongyang is accused of launching the crippling cyber-attack on Sony for producing "The Interview," a comedy that depicts a fictional plot to assassinate the North's leader Kim Jong-Un.

Through Monday to Wednesday, websites of the North's major state media went dead for hours, while foreign diplomats and journalists in Pyongyang reportedly complained of a temporary shutdown of Internet services.

But such outages that could have crippled businesses and paralysed daily life elsewhere likely went largely unnoticed in the North, where only a trusted few can access the world wide web.

"Most of ordinary people in North Korea have no access to the Internet. Only a handful of elites can use it, with great restrictions," said Kim Seung-Joo, professor at Korea University's Centre for Information Security Technologies (CIST).

"Since North Korea as a whole relies so little on the Internet, the potential damage of the outage will also be quite limited," he said.

The impoverished state ruled by the Kim family tightly controls its 25 million citizens, with all TVs and radios registered with the police and preset to state frequencies.

More than two million use mobile phones but almost all lack Internet connectivity or overseas call features, according to defectors and experts.

The North also has about a million computers -- mainly available at educational and state institutions -- but most lack any connection to the world wide web.

Instead, a domestic "Kwangmyong" intranet offers e-mail, some online games and access to websites of state bodies and media but little else.

- Little for hackers to attack -

All online content and e-mail are strictly censored or monitored. And a chat service on the Kwangmyong network was shut recently after its growing popularity among college students unnerved authorities, said Park Kun-Ha, secretary general of the North Korea Intellectuals Solidarity, a Seoul-based news site run by North Korean refugees.

Park estimated the number of intranet users at "some tens of thousands," adding that access to the world wide web remained strictly limited to a handful of top party cadres, propaganda officials and foreign expats.

"North Koreans' lives are not bound by computers or the Internet like the rest of the world," Park said.

Lim Jong-In, another cyber expert at CIST, said hackers may find "little to attack" in one of the world's least-wired nations.

"The North's major national infrastructures are not connected to the Internet, so potential hackers may find little to attack or harm," he said.

North Korea's limited connection to the Internet is based on just four web pipelines that run through China, operated by China Unicom.

It reportedly has only about 1,000 IP addresses registered under its national domain, compared with 112 million in South Korea, but is also believed to run an elite unit of thousands of hackers to wage cyber attacks.

South Korea has accused Pyongyang of launching a series of crippling malware attacks on its government, banks and media websites in recent years, although the North denied involvement.

Lim earlier estimated the North had around 6,000 such hackers, describing it as "one of the world's top five countries" in cyber warfare capability.

Many operate in Chinese border cities such as Dandong under software contractors hired by Pyongyang, he added.

"If the US wants to inflict pain on the North, it would be better to have such software contractors arrested rather than paralysing the North's negligible Internet network," Lim said.


Thanks for being here;
We need your help. The SpaceDaily news network continues to grow but revenues have never been harder to maintain.

With the rise of Ad Blockers, and Facebook - our traditional revenue sources via quality network advertising continues to decline. And unlike so many other news sites, we don't have a paywall - with those annoying usernames and passwords.

Our news coverage takes time and effort to publish 365 days a year.

If you find our news sites informative and useful then please consider becoming a regular supporter or for now make a one off contribution.
SpaceDaily Contributor
$5 Billed Once


credit card or paypal
SpaceDaily Monthly Supporter
$5 Billed Monthly


paypal only


.


Related Links
Satellite-based Internet technologies






Comment on this article via your Facebook, Yahoo, AOL, Hotmail login.

Share this article via these popular social media networks
del.icio.usdel.icio.us DiggDigg RedditReddit GoogleGoogle








INTERNET SPACE
Telstra buys Asian telecom provider Pacnet
Sydney (AFP) Dec 23, 2014
Cashed-up Australian telecoms giant Telstra said Tuesday it has agreed to buy Pacnet, Asia's biggest private owner of submarine communication cables, for US$697 million in one of its largest acquisitions to date. Pacnet, headquartered in Singapore and Hong Kong, also offers data centre services to carriers, governments and multinationals across the Asia-Pacific. The acquisition, which in ... read more


INTERNET SPACE
Moon Express testing compact lunar lander at Kennedy

UK Plans to Drill Into Moon, Explore Feasibility of Manned Base

Carnegie Mellon Unveils Lunar Rover "Andy"

Why we should mine the moon

INTERNET SPACE
NASA, Planetary Scientists Find Meteoritic Evidence of Mars Water Reservoir

Opportunity drives on in no-flash mode

Australian university students aim to generate first 'breathable' air on Mars

Goddard instrument makes first detection of organic matter on Mars

INTERNET SPACE
NASA releases video of Orion spacecraft re-entry from astronaut's perspective

XCOR Announces Further Progress on XCOR Lynx Spacecraft

Russia, US to Cooperate on Orion Spacecraft Modernization

NASA Voyager: 'Tsunami Wave' Still Flies Through Interstellar Space

INTERNET SPACE
China's Long March puts satellite in orbit on 200th launch

Countdown to China's new space programs begins

China develops new rocket for manned moon mission: media

Service module of China's returned lunar orbiter reaches L2 point

INTERNET SPACE
NASA, SpaceX Update Launch of Fifth SpaceX Resupply Mission to ISS

Fifth SpaceX Mission Lets the CATS Out on the International Space Station

Politics no problem, say US and Russian spacefarers

ISS Experiment May Hold Key to Alzheimer's Cause

INTERNET SPACE
Soyuz Installed at Baikonur, Expected to Launch Wednesday

Russian Space Agency Pushes Back Earth Imaging Satellite Launch to Friday

State Spaceports Receive Federal Funding

Arianespace sets new operational benchmarks on its latest Soyuz success

INTERNET SPACE
Kepler Proves It Can Still Find Planets

NASA's Kepler Reborn, Makes First Exoplanet Find of New Mission

Super-Earth spotted by ground-based telescope, a first

Astronomers spot Pluto-size objects swarming about young sun

INTERNET SPACE
Breakthrough in predictions of pressure-dependent combustion reactions

Back to future with Roman architectural concrete

Earth's most abundant mineral finally has a name

'Mind the gap' between atomically thin materials




The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2014 - Space Media Network. All websites are published in Australia and are solely subject to Australian law and governed by Fair Use principals for news reporting and research purposes. AFP, UPI and IANS news wire stories are copyright Agence France-Presse, United Press International and Indo-Asia News Service. ESA news reports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additional copyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. Advertising does not imply endorsement, agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by Space Media Network on any Web page published or hosted by Space Media Network. Privacy Statement All images and articles appearing on Space Media Network have been edited or digitally altered in some way. Any requests to remove copyright material will be acted upon in a timely and appropriate manner. Any attempt to extort money from Space Media Network will be ignored and reported to Australian Law Enforcement Agencies as a potential case of financial fraud involving the use of a telephonic carriage device or postal service.