Special to WorldTribune.com

Bill Gertz, Inside the Ring, Washington Times

U.S. intelligence agencies have identified the military officer orchestrating North Korea’s state-sponsored hacking attacks, such as the one on Sony Pictures Entertainment. He is Gen. Kim Yong-chol, director of the espionage and clandestine operations service known as the Reconnaissance General Bureau, or RGB.

The RGB was formed in 2009 when the Korean People’s Army, the communist state’s military, combined its Reconnaissance Bureau with the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea Central Committee Operations Department. The combined intelligence and military special operations force is under the control of North Korean supreme leader Kim Jong-un. Both military and party organizations have a long history of deadly covert operations and nefarious foreign espionage operations, such as the 1970s operations to kidnap foreign nationals for use in intelligence training in North Korea.

U.S. and South Korean intelligence agencies have been tracking Gen. Kim since he emerged as a member of the Central Military Commission in September 2010. The four-star general also was part of the funeral committee for Kim Jong-il, who died in 2011, a key indicator of his place in the hierarchy of the secretive North Korean power structure. His promotion to full general was announced in February 2012.

Gen. Kim, who is also deputy chief of the military’s general staff, has headed the RGB since 2009, but his career has not been without bumps. He was demoted to two-star rank in November 2012 following the arrest of a number of North Korean spies in South Korea. By February of 2013, however, Gen. Kim had regained the lost two stars.

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  Gen. Kim Yong-Chol, Is this the Grinch who stole Sony’s Christmas?, Kim Jong-Un, LIFE, Sony, The Interview, WorldTribune.com