CYBER > North Koreans testing cyber weapons on South Korea?

Wed, 2011-07-06 03:04 PM

By: John P. Mello, Jr.

Cyberwar: Not your typical DDoS attack

A series of cyber attacks on South Korean government and U.S. military Websites last March could have been North Korea testing its weaponry for a future cyber war, a major cyber security firm reported on July 5.

While acknowledging the tools used in the attacks -- distributed denial of service, malware that uses encryption and a multi-tier botnet architecture -- aren't new, their combination in the forays conducted in March are innovative. "[T]he combination of technical sophistication juxtaposed with relatively limited execution and myopic outcome is analogous to bringing a Lamborghini to a go-cart race," the report by McAfee noted.

"As such," it continued, "the motivations appear to outweigh the attack, making this truly seem like an exercise to test and observe response capabilities."

McAfee explained that the denial of service (DDoS) attacks against South Korean targets originated from computers infected with malware within that nation. Not only did the malware feed the DDoS assaults, which disrupted the service offerings of their targets, but it created a botnet controlled by a botmaster. That's not an unusual MO for botware, but these sorties had some distinctive characteristics.  Read more

WIKISTRAT > A Revolution in Geostrategy

[This article describes the Wikistrat’s International Grand Strategy Competition (first week out) hosted by WIKISTRAT - where the world's greatest futurists/strategists come together to strategize about the future in 5 very focused and pertinent issues...]

Grand Strategy Competition Update

THURSDAY, JUNE 16, 2011 AT 5:45AM

As head judge of Wikistrat’s International Grand Strategy Competition, I wanted to highlight some of the takeaways that we’ve already gathered in the first week of the contest.  As you may already know, the competition brings together more than 30 teams comprised of PhD and masters students from elite international schools and world-renowned think tanks.  Those teams, evenly distributed over a dozen or so countries (so as to encourage intra-country as well as inter-country competition), are being challenged to come up with long-term grand strategies in relation to five issues:  global energy security, global economic “rebalancing,” Jihadist terrorism, the Sino-American relationship and nuclear proliferation in the Middle East.  

U.S. Sends Humanitarian Envoy to North Korea

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

The United States on Tuesday dispatched an official envoy to North Korea in a rare trip aimed at assessing food scarcity in the impoverished state against the backdrop of a building push to resume the paralyzed aid-for-denuclearization talks, Reuters reported (see GSN, May 23).

photo courtesy:  dailyworldtrends.com

Special envoy for North Korean human rights Robert King and a small delegation of U.S. officials arrived "to consult humanitarian issues" between Washington and Pyongyang, the official Korean Central News Agency said in a brief dispatch.

The last formal trip by a U.S. official to the Stalinist state took place in December 2009.

"Since North Korea sees U.S. decisions on humanitarian aid through a political lens, the food aid assessment might be treated in Pyongyang as a political signal that the Obama administration might finally be open to a broader political dialogue with North Korea," North Korea specialist Scott Snyder stated on the Council of Foreign Relations website.

King's visit occurs while North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il is in China -- his third such trip in little more than a year. Experts and envoys believe Kim will use the trip to seek more financial and food assistance from its longtime ally. In exchange for providing badly needed aid, analysts anticipate Beijing will pressure Pyongyang to agree to South Korea's proposal for bilateral talks on North Korea's nuclear activities.

Washington shut off food aid to Pyongyang in 2008 and is waiting for the OK from Seoul to open up the pipeline, according to Reuters.

Opponents of providing further food to Pyongyang argue the regime has previously used the assistance to feed its large army and not its citizenry. Seoul says the North has the same food supplies as in 2010. South Korean officials are also suspicious that Pyongyang wants to build up its food supplies prior to a third nuclear test that would presumably result in further restrictions on foreign assistance (Jeremy Laurence, Reuters/Yahoo!News, May 24) Full article
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North Korean Missile Reach Will Extend to U.S.: Senior Intel Official

Thursday, May 19, 2011

By Diane Barnes

Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON -- North Korea's ballistic missile program would eventually yield systems capable of delivering nuclear weapons to the United States, a senior U.S. intelligence official said on Wednesday (see GSN, April 14).

(May. 19) - A North Korean missile unit, shown in a 1992 military parade in Pyongyang. North Korea is on track to one day produce ballistic missiles suited for carrying nuclear weapons to the United States, a high-level U.S. intelligence official said on Wednesday (Getty Images).

The North Korean missile threat is "very different from what we had 40 years ago with the Soviet Union and the threat of first strikes," Raymond Colston, the new national intelligence manager for Korea at the National Intelligence Director's Office, said during a Capitol Hill panel discussion of Korean Peninsula security issues.

"No one is looking at the North Koreans as building these systems to have a first-strike capability or anything like that. That's not what we're really concerned about. But they are certainly building missiles that eventually will be capable of targeting the U.S., and these missiles will be capable of having nuclear weapons."

The North has an aggressive missile development program that has included two apparent test launches of its Taepodong 2 long-range ballistic missile, in 2006 and 2009. The first flight ended in less than a minute, while the second rocket flew farther but apparently crashed down with the second and third stages failing to separate.

Pyongyang is not known to have yet developed nuclear warheads that could be loaded onto missiles. The regime, though, is believed to hold enough plutonium for six weapons and last November unveiled a uranium enrichment plant that could give it a second route for preparing weapons material.

Years of diplomatic activity under the six-party talks process have failed to persuade the regime to accept nuclear disarmament.

North Korea's proliferation of weapons systems is a "very serious concern," added the official, who spoke on the third day in his present position at the National Intelligence Director's Office.

The U.S. intelligence community, Colston said, has "reasons ... to be concerned that North Korea is a country that will sell just about anything, and we don't put past North Korea a willingness to sell even the most dangerous weapons that they might have."  Full article

Nuke Security Summit

North Korea Officially Invited to Nuke Security Summit

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

image courtesy of:  dailymail.co.uk

North Korea has received an official invitation to have leader Kim Jong Il meet with South Korean President Lee Myung-bak at the 2012' Global Nuclear Security Summit in Seoul, the Yonhap News Agency reported on Wednesday (see GSN, May 13).

Lee last week said Kim was welcome to attend the summit if he would first recommit his government to permanent denuclearization and acknowledge Pyongyang's guilt in two 2010 incidents that left 50 South Koreans dead.

"The genuine intention of our government has been delivered to the North," said an official in Seoul, continuing that personal South Korean contact with North Korean officials had been made in extending the offer.

The official provided no other specifics of the matter.

North Korea was not invited to the first nuclear security summit, held last year in Washington (see GSN, April 14, 2010). The second summit is to focus again on enhancing international efforts to secure all stocks of nuclear materials.

"We hope there will be more specific discussions between the South and the North if there is an opportunity in the future," the official said.

The North last week derided the offer from Seoul as "ridiculous." While South Korean officials are still waiting for a formal answer, observers say Pyongyang is not likely to take up the invitation. The point for Seoul might be more to lean on its neighbor to accept denuclearization and move forward on diplomacy between the two longtime antagonists, experts say (Yonhap News Agency, May 18
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