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Prof. Kim Heung-Kwang has told BBC Click that North Korea has trained 6,000 military hackers capable of attacks that could destroy critical infrastructure or even kill people:
For 20 years Prof Kim taught computer science at Hamheung Computer Technology University, before escaping the country in 2004. While Prof Kim did not teach hacking techniques, his former students have gone on to form North Korea's notorious hacking unit Bureau 121. The bureau, which is widely believed to operate out of China, has been credited for numerous hacks. Many of the attacks are said to have been aimed specifically at South Korean infrastructure, such as power plants and banks.
Speaking at a location just outside the South Korean capital, Prof Kim told the BBC he has regular contact with key figures within the country who have intimate knowledge of the military's cyber operation. "The size of the cyber-attack agency has increased significantly, and now has approximately 6,000 people," he said. He estimated that between 10% to 20% of the regime's military budget is being spent on online operations. "The reason North Korea has been harassing other countries is to demonstrate that North Korea has cyber war capacity," he added. "Their cyber-attacks could have similar impacts as military attacks, killing people and destroying cities."
Speaking more specifically, Prof Kim said North Korea was building its own malware based on Stuxnet - a hack attack, widely attributed to the US and Israel, which struck Iranian nuclear centrifuges before being discovered in 2010. "[A Stuxnet-style attack] designed to destroy a city has been prepared by North Korea and is a feasible threat," Prof Kim said. Earlier this year, the South Korean government blamed North Korea for a hack on the country's Hydro and Nuclear Power Plant. "Although the nuclear plant was not compromised by the attack, if the computer system controlling the nuclear reactor was compromised, the consequences could be unimaginably severe and cause extensive casualties," Prof Kim said.
Original Submission
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Justin Case on Sunday May 31 2015, @03:04PM
You needed a North Korean to tell you that hackers can kill? Not been paying attention I guess.
In the half-a-century-plus that humans have been creating software, we still haven't figured out how to make it bug free. As a result, computers simply can't be trusted -- with secrets, with control of physical objects. Soon there will be nobody left who remembers that the world worked just fine before the stampede to put everything "online".
But, we must be cool, and new, and wow. At any cost. We'll believe the risk only after the disaster, and then we'll "patch" something and carry on. Because we absolutely must have computers in everything!
Someone a few years ago commented that humans seem to be in a frenzied race to create the Terminators. I haven't seen a lot of counter-evidence since then.
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Sunday May 31 2015, @07:05PM
Yes Commander Adama, we've all seen Battlestar Galactica
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 31 2015, @08:53PM
Oh computers can be trusted just fine. All you need to do is put them in a locked room and cut the metaphorical cables.
Genuine software bugs are very rarely damaging, the typical software bug would render the equipment inoperable, or be obviously malfunctioning. It's much more likely to be struck by lightning than to suffer software-related injury.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 31 2015, @08:54PM
It's not about being cool, new, and wow at all, its all about being *lazy*.
It's about not having to go outside and climb that hill to see how much water is in the tank.
(Score: 2) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Monday June 01 2015, @09:22AM
Lazy/ efficient, tomato / tomato.
Well I for one quite like not having to pay people to schlep around doing stupid menial tasks like walking up hills to check water levels. And because the computers can give the water company live, accurate readings from the water tank and even calculate accurate estimates of forthcoming demand from our customers, they can manage production more efficiently, not producing more water than is actually needed, driving down costs again.
Sometimes, those cost savings actually make it to the customers too.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 01 2015, @12:59PM
http://img2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20131110114604/smashbroslawlorigins/images/a/af/Captain_Haddock_Meme.jpg [nocookie.net]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 01 2015, @07:15AM
Yes, bugs are bad. But how about multiple vulnerabilities baked into the hardware and software? Who do you think is responsible for them? And what is being done about it? Can you be certain that a new piece of hardware/software does not have back-doors?
Let us not forget that government-mandated bugs are increasing in number and power.