Hackers are handpicked and pampered elite in North Korea

[InfoSec News <alerts () infosecnews org>]

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/12/05/us-sony-cybersecurity-northkorea-idUSKCN0JJ08B20141205

By JU-MIN PARK AND JAMES PEARSON
Reuters
Dec 5, 2014

Despite its poverty and isolation, North Korea has poured resources into a 
sophisticated cyber-warfare cell called Bureau 121, defectors from the 
secretive state said as Pyongyang came under the microscope for a 
crippling hack into computers at Sony Pictures Entertainment.

A North Korean diplomat has denied Pyongyang was behind the attack that 
was launched last month but a U.S. national security source said it was a 
suspect.

Defectors from the North have said Bureau 121, staffed by some of the most 
talented computer experts in the insular state, is part of the General 
Bureau of Reconnaissance, an elite spy agency run by the military. They 
have said it is involved in state-sponsored hacking, used by the Pyongyang 
government to spy on or sabotage its enemies.

Pyongyang has active cyber-warfare capabilities, military and software 
security experts have said. Much of it is targeted at the South, 
technically still in a state of war with North Korea. But Pyongyang has 
made no secret of its hatred of the United States, which was on the 
South's side in the 1950-53 Korean War.

[...]



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