Chief of the KPA General Staff, Gen. Hyon Yong Chol (L) and an organizational graphic of the KPA General Staff (R) (Photo: Rodong Sinmun; graphic by Michael Madden/NK Leadership Watch )
DPRK state media reported on 12 April (Friday) that a spokesman for the Korean People’s Army [KPA] General Staff denied that DPRK operatives working under the Reconnaissance General Bureau [RGB] engaged in cyberattacks on South Korean [ROK] financial and media institutions on 20 March. On 10 April ( Wednesday) South Korean authorities announced that a preliminary investigation traced the cyberattack to the DPRK. Yonhap reported that “Three South Korean banks — Shinhan, NongHyup and Jeju — and their insurance affiliates as well as three TV broadcasters — KBS, MBC and YTN — were hit by the cyber attack as malicious code infected some 48,000 computers in their networks on March 20. Following the initial attack, 58 YTN affiliate servers and 14 anti-Pyongyang Web sites, including those operated by North Korean defectors, also suffered another round of attacks on March 25 and 26.” At a Seoul press conference, Lee Seung-won of the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning said that “an analysis of cyber terror access logs, malicious code and North Korean intelligence showed that the attack methods were similar to those used by the North’s Reconnaissance General Bureau, which has led hacking attacks against South Korea.”
Kim Jong Il tours the Chongjin University of Mining and Metallurgy’s E-library in December 2009 (Photo: KCNA).
Kim Jong Un sits at a computer workstation at the E-Library at the KPA Exhibition of Arms and Equipment in September 2012 (Photo: Rodong Sinmun)
The KPA General Staff spokesman told the military’s newspaper Joson Inmingun “that those who fabricate the groundless story about the “work done by the north” would be labeled as the second traitor Lee Myung Bak.” According to KCNA, the KPA General Staff spokesman also said “the south Korean puppet group’s claim that ‘the March 20 hacking case’ was ‘the work done by the north’ is a deliberate provocation to push the situation on the Korean Peninsula to an extreme phase by taking advantage of the U.S. nuclear war racket and another anti-DPRK confrontation hysteria as it is a replica of the Cheonan warship sinking case. “
On 8 April the editorial bureau of Uriminzokkiri issued the country’s first observed response to the 4 April cyberattack on its website. While the cyber activist group Anonymous claimed credit for the outage of the DPRK web outlet, Uriminzokkiri‘s editorial bureau accused South Korean authorities writing that “the hacking of our homepages that ‘Anonymous’ committed this time can never be tolerated as a grave crime against Internet activities. The problem is that this was not merely a reckless act of an international hackers group, and this is why the crime is more seriously grave. Stating the bottom line up front, the hacking crime committed by ‘Anonymous’ this time is a fabrication of South Korean agents, the gang of puppets.”
(Photo: Uriminzokkiri)
According to Uriminzokkiri‘s editorial:
There is a lot of evidence.
More than anything else, the motive that the criminal group called “Anonymous” offered immediately following the incident, while raving that the hacking was its act, was the sophistry about “the threat from the North,” “the introduction of liberal democracy,” and so on, and this is not different at all from the gang of puppets’ confrontational vituperation against their fellow countrymen.
In addition, most of those that are mentioned in the “list of members” and “the data on the members’ registration” — which are claimed to have been obtained through the hacking — are the organizations that seek peace and reunification. This clearly shows the purpose they are trying to achieve through the game of disclosing such data. Mysteriously, no sooner had the criminal act been committed that the fascist ring, such as the puppet Public Prosecutor’s Office, Police Agency, Intelligence Service, and Defense Ministry, talking about the information that “Anonymous” has obtained through the hacking of the “Uriminjokkkiri” homepage, is blatantly revealing its suppressive intention, while regarding all classes and circles, such as the Unified Progressive Party, the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, members of the Korean Teachers and Education Workers’ Union, journalists, and professors, that seek peace and reunification, as the targets of present-day witch-hunt. Cronies of the “Saenuri Party,” too, clamoring that “pro- North forces should be rooted out,” are running amok in trying to obliterate the reunification forces of patriots and to reinstate the “Yusin” era of the fascist dictatorship by taking advantage of the incident this time. How can this be regarded as being a mere accident?
And this is not all.
The one who claims that the hacking this time was his act was using both English and Korean on Twitter, and “Anonymous” said that he would kick up an anti-Republic smear racket in the middle of Seoul a few days later, wearing a mask representing the puppets. By these facts alone, it is all too clear that the claws of the gang of puppets, including its agents, were stretched out deep in committing the hacking this time.
This is fully proved also by the fact that “Anonymous” is planning another hacking crime against the Internet sites of the Republic again on the anniversary of the day when the US imperialists provoked the Korean war on 25 June.
At present, among South Korean journalists and the people of all classes and circles, suspicion is growing every day that maybe puppet agents were behind the incident this time, and the y are strongly maintaining that the gang of puppets’ maneuver aimed at abusing such a criminal act as Internet hacking in kicking a racket of “eliminating pro-North Forces” can never be overlooked as an even more atrocious crime.
All the facts clearly show that the sinister, hostile force’s hacking maneuver against our Internet homepages this time was a fabrication of the gang of puppets.
Then, why is the gang of puppets continuing to orchestrate such endlessly ugly burlesques?
As was made known, our army and people have recently proclaimed a relentless sacred war of retaliation to resolutely smash the United States and the gang of puppets’ atrocious maneuver of a war of northward aggression and confrontation with fellow countrymen.
As a result, the gang of traitors is being strongly condemned by the South Korean public sentiments and by the whole nation and thus is on pins and needles being driven into an extreme quagmire. The gang of puppets is trying to find a way out from another shocking incident and from kicking up a “racket against the pro-North forces.” For this purpose, the gang of puppets, with the nonsensical sophistry about so-called “Internet Protocol addresses,” “cyber warfare via Internet,” “giving an inciting order regarding the major pending issues in South Korea,” and so on, has openly revealed since long ago its wicked intention of suppressing the people who seek peace and oppose the United States and the belligerent military group’s anti-Republic provocations and their racket of a war of northward aggression by branding them as “pro-North forces.”
It is precisely under these circumstances that the criminal hacking incident of “Anonymous” has occurred, and subsequently another smear racket of disclosing the “list of members” and “eliminating the pro-North forces” has been kicked up.
It is all too clear that all these things can never be overlooked as a mere accident.
Up until now, the puppets have linked all the hacking incidents in South Korea to us in far- fetched manner and have thus shamelessly schemed to whip up anti-Republic hostile sentiments and to mislead the public opinions at home and abroad. However, through such a racket, they have only revealed of their own accord that the real culprits behind the hacking incidents were none other than themselves. How barefaced and despicable their smear act is has been once again clearly disclosed to the whole world through the incident this time.
The ugly behavior of the gang of puppets — which is trying to avoid the condemnations and denunciations to them even by committing hacking crimes and kicking up the racket of anti- Republic smear act and against “pro-North forces” even by using an international hackers group — is indeed the last-ditch effort that those who are horrified by our ultra hard-line position are making in their death throes. Reality clearly shows that the gang of puppets is indeed a herd of unparalleled traitors under heaven and a group of extremely wicked unforgivable criminals.
We will never tolerate the gang of puppets’ anti-Republic confrontational racket and its ugly, evil practice of harming their fellow countrymen.
The hostile forces at home and abroad can never obstruct our cause of justice, no matter how despicably they may scheme.
![Graphic illustrating personnel changes in the senior command of the Korean People's Army [KPA] from 2007 to 2013 (Photo: M. Madden/NK Leadership Watch)](http://nkleadershipwatch.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/kpahcperschgs_220513.jpg)
