Special to WorldTribune.com

Bill Gertz, Inside the Ring, Washington Times

A North Korean defector who once helped train Pyongyang’s military hackers warned this week that the totalitarian regime is a major cybersecurity threat to the United States and other nations.

Kim Heung-gwang, a former professor at North Korea’s Hamhung University of Computer Technology, a key training facility for the military, . . . said North Korean hackers are targeting nuclear power plants, transportation networks, electrical utilities and all major government organizations abroad.

“If all of this happens, North Korea is going to destroy the basic units of civil society, and we need to react strongly to prevent this,” Mr. Kim said, speaking through an interpreter. . . .

The defector said North Korea’s closest allies are Iran and Syria, fellow rogue states united in their opposition to the United States. …

Kim . . . said a special group called Unit 121 is the North’s cyberwarfare organization. … The cyberattack in November against Sony Pictures Entertainment bore all the hallmarks of a North Korean operation, including similarities to cyberattacks against South Korean banks and news media outlets in 2013, the defector said.

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  Defector taught North Korean cyberwar hackers, LIFE, WorldTribune.com