North Korea Gets Second Route To Internet Via Russia Link (bloomberg.com)

Russia is providing North Korea another way to get on the internet, according to cybersecurity outfit FireEye. In an interview on Monday, FireEye's chief technology officer for the Asia-Pacific region, Bryce Boland, said that Russia telecommunications company TransTeleCom opened a new link for users in North Korea. Until now, state-owned China United Network Communications Ltd. was the country's sole connection. Bloomberg reports: "Having an additional loop via Russia gives North Korea more options for how they can operate and reduces the possibility for the United States to put pressure just on a single country to turn off their internet connectivity," Boland said. For Russia, it offers "visibility into North Korean network traffic that might help them understand what North Korea is up to." TransTeleCom, a unit of state-owned Russian Railways JSC, is one of the country's five largest communications service providers, according to its website. The company operates a fiber optic network that runs along railway lines and stretches from Vladivostok to St. Petersburg. TransTeleCom "has historically had a junction of network links with North Korea" under a 2009 agreement with Korea Post and Telecommunications Corp, the company's press office said in an emailed statement that offered no other details.

Comments

Re:Russia

[TimSSG]

FYI: North Korean was a Russia client state before it was a Chinese client state in the 20th century. Tim S.

Re:What are the IP ranges?

[Zocalo]

175.45.176.0/22 - this is directly assigned by APNIC and is the DPRK's only known native IP space allocation.
210.52.109.0/24 - this was assigned by China Unicom as part of their connectivity provision for the DPRK, also assigned from the APNIC RIR pool.
77.94.35.0/24 - assigned by SatGate, a Russian satellite communications provider, and is from the RIPE RIR pool.

Presumably, they'll now be adding a further allocation (another /24?) for the fixed line into Russia as well. All data obtained from Your Friendly North Korean Network Observer (no affiliation), which is worth a read if you're curious out the DPRK's Internet infrastructure, such as it is.