Pentagon Says North Korea Could Become More Active in Cyberwarfare
More cost effective than conventional militaries
North Korea is barely connected to the global internet. But it's trying to step up its hacker game by breaking into hostile networks, according to a new Pentagon report.
"North Korea probably has a military computer network operations (CNO) capability," assesses the Pentagon's latest public estimate (.PDF) of the military threat from North Korea.
So far, suspected North Korean cyber efforts are more like vandalism and espionage than warfare — as with most so-called "cyberattacks" not related to the U.S./Israeli Stuxnet worm. But the Pentagon believes Pyongyang is going to lean into network attacks in the future, largely out of necessity.
"Given North Korea's bleak economic outlook, CNO may be seen as a cost-effective way to modernize some North Korean military capabilities," the report assesses. "The North Korean regime may view CNO as an appealing platform from which to collect intelligence."
Hide Comments (0)
Editor's Note: As of February 29, 2024, commenting privileges on reason.com posts are limited to Reason Plus subscribers. Past commenters are grandfathered in for a temporary period. Subscribe here to preserve your ability to comment. Your Reason Plus subscription also gives you an ad-free version of reason.com, along with full access to the digital edition and archives of Reason magazine. We request that comments be civil and on-topic. We do not moderate or assume any responsibility for comments, which are owned by the readers who post them. Comments do not represent the views of reason.com or Reason Foundation. We reserve the right to delete any comment and ban commenters for any reason at any time. Comments may only be edited within 5 minutes of posting. Report abuses.
Please
to post commentsMute this user?
Ban this user?
Un-ban this user?
Nuke this user?
Un-nuke this user?
Flag this comment?
Un-flag this comment?