A hacker in pajamas disconnected all of North Korea from the Internet

An American hacker, hiding under the pseudonym P4x, told a number of publications that he had managed to single-handedly paralyze the Internet throughout North Korea. It was indicative revenge – a year ago he had suffered an attack by Korean hackers. And to add maximum humiliation, P4x held his action in his pajamas, crunching chips and watching the movie “Alien” with one eye.

Such a massive attack, according to P4x, was accomplished for three reasons. First, the communications networks in the DPRK are small and highly centralized – it was enough to hack just a few basic servers. Second, the equipment there is extremely outdated and its vulnerabilities have long been known, which the hacker took advantage of. And thirdly, negligible number of users have Internet connection in the country, so no one bothered to fight back the attack.

Most likely, there would be no consequences because the DPRK’s dependence on Internet connectivity is low. We could see this as an interesting experiment, were it not for two aspects. On the one hand, the P4x action directly violates a number of U.S. laws, plus international agreements. On the other hand, it is very unreasonable to stage provocations of this kind against a power that possesses atomic weapons and is in a protracted confrontation with the country from which the attack was launched.