North Korea's 3G Mobile Network 'Paralyzed'

North Korea Mobile Network Down

Looks like the boat is rocking again, is this Anon, USA, or any other of a handful parties?

makes you wonder where this will end.......

North Korea's Internet and 3G mobile networks were paralyzed again on Saturday evening, China's official Xinhua news agency reported, with the North Korean government blaming the United States for systemic instability in the country's networks. Internet connectivity had not returned to normal as of 9:30 p.m. local time (7:30 a.m. ET), Xinhua said, citing reporters in the country that had confirmed the situation over fixed telephone systems.

Analysts at global Internet performance firm Dyn Research also reported that North Korea appeared to be suffering another countrywide online blackout. "This time, there wasn't the hours of routing instability that presaged the outage like last time," said Doug Madory, Dyn's director of Internet analysis. "If an outside force took it down again, it did it more efficiently than the previous incident."

The report comes after the North Korean government called Obama a "monkey" and blamed the United States for enduring instability in the country's Internet infrastructure, after the U.S. blamed North Korea for hacking attack on Sony Studios. The attack was allegedly conducted to deter Sony from showing the comedy film "The Interview," the plot of which features a scheme to assassinate North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, and it resulted in major embarrassment for Sony.

President Barack Obama promised retaliation for the hacking attack on Sony but did not specify its form. North Korea has denied responsibility. Most of North Korea's heavily restricted Internet traffic passes through Chinese routers on its way to the outside world, and some have suggested it is China — increasingly annoyed by recalcitrant North Korean behavior despite the two country's long-standing alliance — that is behind North Korea's Internet troubles.

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Update Some new data has surfaced concerning how the attacks against North Korea’s Internet systems unfolded. Arbor Networks, a security firm that tracks denial-of-service attacks around the world said the attackers have switched tactics in recent days.

Dan Holden, an analyst at the firm, said the first attacks on Dec. 22 used the Internet’s time servers to launch anonymous denial-of-service attacks against North Korea’s domain name service machines that track the assignment of domain names to numerical Internet protocol addresses. By Dec. 25, the attacks appear to be focused on Border Gateway Protocol routers. BGP routers are used to maintain connections between Internet providers. “This represents a completely different approach than what had been previously reported,” Holden said. “Whomever was doing it was going after the router rather than the name servers and websites.

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just wondering, if the people don't have access to the Internet and the vast majority probably doesn't even own a smartphones or iPads... why would they need a 3G network?

a reply to: Necrose

i guess it just stops the NK propaganda machine when they don't work, i guess also the worry is if people can get in and turn it off, could hackers get in and turn the internet 'ON'

now, that would be a scary time for NK

a reply to: Phatdamage

Cyber War #1 is in full swing, but who are all of the players?

*cues mystery music*

Kind of weird to watch this slow motion train wreck, whoever is doing it to who.

Relax...they still have fax machines in the event that they need to declare war on South Korea.

There's a 3G network is North Korea? Is it used as a military resource for them or something? I've heard of people smuggling in cell phones somehow, but that the users had to be close to the border with China to pick up the Chinese signals.

originally posted by: Necrose
just wondering, if the people don't have access to the Internet and the vast majority probably doesn't even own a smartphones or iPads... why would they need a 3G network?

For the elite bureaucratic government worker families.

originally posted by: Necrose
just wondering, if the people don't have access to the Internet and the vast majority probably doesn't even own a smartphones or iPads... why would they need a 3G network?

It only affects those in power, not the average person. That's why it's effective.