North Korea, at the centre of a confrontation
with the US over the hacking of Sony Pictures,
experienced a complete internet outage for
hours before links were restored, according to
a US company that monitors internet
infrastructure.
Dyn, the New Hampshire-based internet
monitor, said on Tuesday the reason for the
outage was not known but could range from
technological glitches to a hacking attack.
Several US officials close to the investigations
of the attack on Sony Pictures said the US
government was not involved in any cyber
action against North Korea.
US President Barack Obama had pledged on
Friday to respond to the major cyber attack,
which he blamed on North Korea, "in a place
and time and manner that we choose".
Dyn said North Korea's internet links were
unstable on Monday and the country later
went completely offline.
"We're yet to see how stable the new
connection is," Jim Cowie, chief scientist for
the company, said in a telephone call to
Reuters news agency after the services were
restored.
"The question for the next few hours is
whether it will return to the unstable
fluctuations we saw before the outage."
North Korea is one of the most isolated
nations in the world, and the effects of the
internet outage there were not fully clear.
Very few of its 24 million people have access
to the internet.
However, major websites, including those of
the KCNA state news agency, the
main Rodong Sinmun newspaper and the main
external public-relations company went down
for hours.
Almost all its internet links and traffic pass
through China, except, possibly, for some
satellite links.
"North Korea has significantly less internet to
lose, compared to other countries with similar
populations: Yemen [47 networks],
Afghanistan [370 networks], or Taiwan [5,030
networks]," Dyn Research said in a report.
"And unlike these countries, North Korea
maintains dependence on a single
international provider, China Unicom."
Meanwhile South Korea, which remains
technically at war with the North, said it could
not rule out the involvement of its neighbour
in a cyberattack on its nuclear power plant
operator.
It said only non-critical data was stolen and
operations were not at risk, but had asked for
US help in investigating.
Park Geun-hye, South Korean president, said
on Tuesday the leak of data from the nuclear
operator was a "grave situation" that was
unacceptable as a matter of national security,
but she did not mention any involvement of
North Korea.
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