North Korea Hacked Him. So He Took Down Its Internet

Discussion in 'Serious Discussion' started by MS_User, Feb 5, 2022.

  1. MS_User

    MS_User MDL Guru

    Nov 30, 2014
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    Disappointed with the lack of US response to the Hermit Kingdom's attacks against US security researchers, one hacker took matters into his own hands.

    For the past two weeks, observers of North Korea's strange and tightly restricted corner of the internet began to notice that the country seemed to be dealing with some serious connectivity problems. On several different days, practically all of its websites—the notoriously isolated nation only has a few dozen—intermittently dropped offline en masse, from the booking site for its Air Koryo airline to Naenara, a page that serves as the official portal for dictator Kim Jong-un's government. At least one of the central routers that allow access to the country's networks appeared at one point to be paralyzed, crippling the Hermit Kingdom's digital connections to the outside world.

    Some North Korea watchers pointed out that the country had just carried out a series of missile tests, implying that a foreign government's hackers might have launched a cyberattack against the rogue state to tell it to stop saber-rattling.

    But responsibility for North Korea's ongoing internet outages doesn't lie with US Cyber Command or any other state-sponsored hacking agency. In fact, it was the work of one American man in a T-shirt, pajama pants, and slippers, sitting in his living room night after night, watching Alien movies and eating spicy corn snacks—and periodically walking over to his home office to check on the progress of the programs he was running to disrupt the internet of an entire country.

    Just over a year ago, an independent hacker who goes by the handle P4x was himself hacked by North Korean spies. P4x was just one victim of a hacking campaign that targeted Western security researchers with the apparent aim of stealing their hacking tools and details about software vulnerabilities. He says he managed to prevent those hackers from swiping anything of value from him. But he nonetheless felt deeply unnerved by state-sponsored hackers targeting him personally—and by the lack of any visible response from the US government.

    So after a year of letting his resentment simmer, P4x has taken matters into his own hands. “It felt like the right thing to do here. If they don’t see we have teeth, it’s just going to keep coming,” says the hacker. (P4x spoke to WIRED and shared screen recordings to verify his responsibility for the attacks but declined to use his real name for fear of prosecution or retaliation.) “I want them to understand that if you come at us, it means some of your infrastructure is going down for a while.”

    P4x says he's found numerous known but unpatched vulnerabilities in North Korean systems that have allowed him to singlehandedly launch “denial-of-service” attacks on the servers and routers the country's few internet-connected networks depend on. For the most part, he declined to publicly reveal those vulnerabilities, which he argues would help the North Korean government defend against his attacks. But he named, as an example, a known bug in the web server software NginX that mishandles certain HTTP headers, allowing the servers that run the software to be overwhelmed and knocked offline. He also alluded to finding “ancient” versions of the web server software Apache, and says he's started to examine North Korea's own national homebrew operating system, known as Red Star OS, which he described as an old and likely vulnerable version of Linux.
     
  2. 55Percent

    55Percent MDL Junior Member

    Mar 12, 2023
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    My understanding is the DPRK has spent some serious buckaroos to get some younger folks under their umbrella to learn about this art of hacking and that they have had great success. Well, maybe a tad more than just an "understanding". The DPRK has had singular influences upon the course of my own life and sometimes not in such a good way, but now I'm an old fart and don't need to worry too much about opening up a bit about that regime.

    Truth is, though, I find it quite interesting that nobody has done a post here since February of last year. I'm wondering if folks are scared to post about them rulers in that nation because they will be targeted by them for posting anything?

    Like I wrote, I'm too old and not well to have to be too concerned about what they may want to do to me, if they even care about this post. Or this thread. But I'd bet they did learn something from P4x's actions. Still, good to read that somebody had the guts to go after them.

    And you can bet any opposing government entity, in a number of nations, won't want to show their hand if they find security holes, as those governments will want to exploit those holes.

    Funny thing, many years ago we used to have contests here in Asia for hackers. Legal type competition. I don't know if that is still happening, but I am thinking of maybe 20 to 30 years ago or so. Maybe longer. I forget. I remember one of the leaders of that competition thing got the heck beat out of him in one nation. That was a nasty situation. Some of you might remember that.
     
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  3. case-sensitive

    case-sensitive MDL Expert

    Nov 7, 2013
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    But but but but but !!!!!!! ........ What does qanon say ? ............and his holyness saint trump ?

    @ conspiracy theorys and adverts

    Each country has the same needs / percieved needs and possibilitys .

    A denial of service attack is kiddy cack ......... and was maybe ' sucsessfull ' for a short time but so what ? ....... Did it do any damage ? = No ........ Was there any benefit ? = No ............... other than letting the koreans know that their system has holes ....... wich holes ........ and where ........... wich then stops ' our ' sercret services useing them to watch the koreans .
     
  4. 55Percent

    55Percent MDL Junior Member

    Mar 12, 2023
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    I figured I'd wait for a bit to see if MS_User had anything to post before I responded to your thoughts, case-sensitive.

    Trying to tie your political ideas in the U.S. of A. into the awful governing style of those in power in the DPRK is really insensitive to millions of human beings. The regime of the DPRK is most definitely directly responsible for deaths outside of their national borders and equally responsible for many deaths within their national borders. But that isn't really properly addressing the idea of 'needs are equal'.

    "Each country has the same needs" is absolutely bovine excrement when we focus our attention upon the DPRK. But there are actually a limited number of U.S. citizens that really understand the problems associated with the DPRK and I suspect you fall into that group, so I can easily forgive you for your misconceptions regarding that aspect of geopolitical contemplations, as well as possibly the lack of understanding of what we are going through over here far from where you are safely living. Do you have any idea what it is like to have ICBMs launched at your nation every month for months on end? Obviously not.

    And I had better halt at this point or face the wrath of the admin/mod team, but pointing out your error in understanding our problems in this part of the world vis-à-vis the DPRK seems worth the possibility I will have a sledge hammer brought down upon me by the fine admin/mod team here. Please be more careful, case-sensitive. This planet does not revolve around politics in the U.S.of A. It revolves around the Sun, which I made note of in another of my posts around this community in another thread.

    By the way, it is sort of fun that you seem to like to chase me around this community. It sort of livens things up a bit. Tech talk can get so boring sometimes, can't it? Code talk --- line 15, line 50; gets so boring, yes?
     
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  5. 55Percent

    55Percent MDL Junior Member

    Mar 12, 2023
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    #5 55Percent, Apr 13, 2023
    Last edited: Apr 13, 2023
    And we are under a missile alert as I type this. Looks like the concern is the Hokkaido area, but NHK is updating quite frequently. Seems it started about 0727hrs. And it is the morning of the 13th here.

    EDIT: I just managed to get a translation and here is an example of what we face so often and this is NHK:

    < < < Copy Starts > > >

    Korean ballistic missile has already fallen

    April 13, 2023 8:33 North Korea Missile

    At 8:19 a.m., the Japan Coast Guard announced, citing information from the Ministry of Defense, that ``what could have been a ballistic missile has already fallen.''

    Vessels underway are urged to pay attention to future information.

    In relation to the missile launch information, the government has released new information on Mnet (Emergency Information Network System), saying, "Today, at 7:55 J alert, at 7:56 on Mnet, it was launched from North Korea. It was announced that one of the missiles would fall in the vicinity of Hokkaido.After that, when we checked the information, it was confirmed that the possibility of the missile falling in Hokkaido and its surroundings had disappeared. We will correct it."

    Government officials say multiple ballistic missiles may have been launched
    Officials say North Korea may have launched multiple ballistic missiles.
    8:00 Tohoku Shinkansen suspension
    According to JR East, the Tohoku Shinkansen has suspended operation near Shin-Aomori Station to confirm safety in response to the launch of what appears to be a ballistic missile from North Korea.
    Before 8:00 JR Hokkaido Stop driving on all lines in Hokkaido
     
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  6. 55Percent

    55Percent MDL Junior Member

    Mar 12, 2023
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    So at this writing, it appears we now have an all clear, but these events happen so fast that mistakes have happened in the past. Still, it disrupts many daily activities, and this one is for those going to work or to meetings using the Shinkansen, and so on. Plus, the possibility of an error and an inadvertent landing of a projectile onto any land area of this nation is a very real possibility and that could trigger an accidental conflict. This is a very serious business and most of the folks on the planet know zero about what we have going on here. Odd this happened right after my post above about this. Now you see the real time happenings here when those governing folks let their military do those launches.
     
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