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S. Korea's Cyberwar Against N. Korea's Nukes
An anonymous reader writes "Yonhap News Agency reports that South Korea has announced it is developing offensive cyber-capabilities to target North Korea's nuclear facilities. Yonhap speculates the tools will be similar to the Stuxnet computer virus the U.S. used against Iran's uranium enrichment program. A report in The Diplomat questions this assertion, noting that a Stuxnet-like virus would only temporarily disrupt Pyongyang's ability to build more nuclear weapons, while doing nothing to address its existing ones. Instead, The Diplomat suggests Seoul is interested in developing cyber-capabilities that temporarily disable North Korea's ability to launch nuclear missiles, which would be complement Seoul's efforts to develop precision-guided missiles to preemptively destroy Pyongyang's nuclear and missile facilities."
NK has limited internet links so are the sites even online?
I wonder where they're going to find people familiar with infrastructure that obsolete. Presumably there's a wise old beard in a back office somewhere, getting the last laugh on his peers for refusing to let go of the 1980s.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
Just how exactly are they going to disrupt Best Korea? Send a man up with a hammer to start smashing all the vacuum tubes?
Don't need to be. Stuxnet got into Iran's offline nuclear program computers on a USB stick. The trick is making a really hellaciously virulent bit of malicious software, something that can become a global-level nuisance, and in time it'll find its way onto the target machines.
http://www.wired.com/threatlev...
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
NK has no issue shelling SK over perceived slights etc. This will be viewed as an outright hostile act if they were to ever launch a cyber attack on NK. SK playing with fire IMHO. The US reserves the right to respond with military force to a cyber attack, you think NK won't do the same ?
How can you be sure you don't infect the launch systems and launch against yourself?
NK is not the most connected country. The launch systems almost certainly aren't networked (Even the most idiotic designer is going to want an air gap), and probably don't use the most sophisticated of computerized control systems. I wouldn't be surprised if the silo doors are operated by ladder-logic controllers. There might just be nothing to hack. The greatest vulnerability is probably communications from whereever central command is (I'm sure they have a somewhat unimpressive immitation of NORAD burried somwhere) to the missiles - the radio links can be knocked out via simple jamming at sufficient power, but there are sure to be landline backups. Possibly via teletype machine.
Electronic warfare exploits an enemies sophisticated technology against them. NK may have the ability to build a nuclear bomb, but it may well be launched with computer systems that would have been considered obsolete twenty years ago. I expect they are reluctant to depend upon imported components, so a lot of it will be long-outdated.
What a clever, clever way to disguise their intentions, methodology and actions, announce it to the world.
Who would have ever guessed?
As far as I heard, North Korea's atomic weapons manufacturing programme is an almost exact copycat of the early 1940's american Manhattan Project. That is, cyclotrons refining U-235 are controlled by office clerk ladies, who sit in front of dial gauges all day long and adjust the voltage manually if the needles wanders off the prescribed value on the scale, without knowing a dime about nuclear physics or electro-dynamics.
Not a super efficient method, but officice girls are pretty hard to infect via plugging with an USB pendrive, or at least such an act qualifies more like adult movie performance, rather than a cyber attack... Furtnermore, considering the age and advancement of DPRK tech, those office girls may need to be stuffed with a donkey member sized vacuum tube bulb, rathern than a mere 3" pendrive. Levitational Cisagralis for cyber warriors, anyone has some in supply? Except that pornography is punished by execution in North Korea! You see, their defences are airtight.
Reaslistically what may work, is some kind of a Geronimo-style air mobility special operations manouver, complete with stealth-modified BlackHawk choppers and Gorgon Eye multi-tube night-vision equipped DevGRU commando soldiers, to kidnap the north korean nuclear stockpile at gunpoint. The Pentagon regularly brags they would be able to pull off such a stunt on Pakistan's stockpile, should that country ever fall under taliban control. On the other hand, DPRK commandos have a frightening reputation of being modern day ninjas, they chop down yankees with axes and it is also unlikely that Russia would allow USA to pull off a Geronimo copycat stunt so close to its own borders.
Waiter! I'll have a chicken tupogi with a side of kimchi for would be complement dinner.
How do they even know that they'll be able to target North Korea in this way? North Korea's systems are likely crude, home-grown solutions compared to Iran which used Siebel systems and stuff like that. North Korea is by comparison one Chinese power change away from being functionally embargoed by every other country on Earth. This strikes me as something akin to the Independence Day ending in reverse.
Now they just need to figure out how to remotely detonate North Koreas arsenal. They wouldn't know what hit them.
As things stand, I doubt that the NK is that advanced. It doesn't need to be. There were NO COMPUTERS when the first A-Bomb was dropped or when V2s flew.
The purpose of an atomic bomb atop a rocket is to get near enough to a target and detonate.
It does not need any sophistication to do so,
it just needs enough propellant, a crude guidance system (like a cheap GPS [use existing infrastructure,] some actuators for targeting and detonation,) air bursting at height seems to generate a big blast.
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The trick is making a really hellaciously virulent bit of malicious software
The other trick is not blabbing to the press about what your intentions are.
are often hidden from the public. You don't tell what you are going to do. Did the US bragged about Stuxnet before using it? The worse thing that could happen is North will sabotage some "projects" that they have and blame it to the South.
Im thinking that the people who have access to those computers wouldn't be able to get a USB key into the facility. They are likely the few people in NK that have a use for a USB key.
You get better at it the more times you try.
North Korea's nuke launches likelly involve no technology at all. Beloved leader Kim Jong Un grabs and throws the ICBM himself.
That is what he said, right?
Until after you've accomplished your task.
"NK has limited internet links so are the sites even online?"
They are at the moment.
Both of them.
"What could possibly go wrong?"
Certainly not. That's the easy part.
Or unless you want someone to think you're doing something you're not.
North Korea launches all out attack with it's million man army, assuming there is no bloody military coup. Nice strategic thinking there, [derogatory expression about mental abilities]. Only way such capability makes sense is in the connection of all out war and invasion, in which case the North has likely isolated their systems already long before.
so .. in reality this is a jab at how back-ways n.korea still is, having to use a rotary dial phone to call the missile silo, so they can flip the breaker for the fuse and then yell out the window to a soldier to go light a match on the rocket? or more like: "I'm gonna call me a that web-cam hotty over for a quicky"-you-can't-do-that u non-digital un .. one?
The first rule about cyberwarfare is you don't talk about cyberwarfare.
The second rule about cyberwarfare is you don't talk about cyberwarfare.
Did Israel announce that it was developing Stuxnet? That would be monumentally stupid.
Is don't say that you are going to do it.
Yea, press releases are so much cheaper and easier.
Kim Jong Un wont like this.