Bill Gertz

North Korea has developed advanced offensive cyberwarfare capabilities that were used in recent attacks and are now part of Pyongyang’s asymmetric war-fighting methods.

Details of the North Korean cyber war efforts were disclosed for the first time in a Pentagon report to Congress last week.

The effort was described as a “military offensive cyber operations capability” that was used in operations since 2009 to gather intelligence and seek disruption of networks in highly-wired South Korea.

North Korean cyber attack capabilities were known by the Pentagon since the late 1990s. During that time, the Joint Staff conducted a military exercise code-named Eligible Receive that shocked senior military leaders. In the exercise, National Security Agency hackers posing as North Korean hackers and limited to using commercially available software, demonstrated that with little effort North Korea could digitally attack and shut down U.S. electrical power grids throughout the western United States.

The report, “Military and Security Developments Involving the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea,” was required under 2012 legislation.

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