The Voice of Korea, North Korea’s international radio broadcaster, recently aired a commentary that took aim at several hacking incidents in the U.S., but the true aim of the piece appears to be the U.S. Department of Defense’s recently published Strategy for Operating in Cyberspace.
The U.S. document, a declassified version of which is available online, brings together cyber strategies and thinking throughout the DoD. The classified version also says major cyber attacks can constitute acts of war, according to reports.
The VOK commentary begins with the hack of Fox News’ Twitter stream that saw a message posted that U.S. President Barack Obama was dead. It goes on to note a couple of other recent cyber attacks. Here’s a sampling of the commentary:
On May 13th last, the website of the U.S. Senate was hacked.
Lulz Security, a band of hackers, claimed their responsibility for it and opened hacked data to the public putting the United States to shame before the world.
Before the ripples subsided, the U.S. munitions monopoly Lockheed Martin, was attacked by hackers on May 30th.
Lockheed Martin, which had believed in thier computer security system, was compelled to admit the disgraceful case one week after it had happened. – Voice of Korea, July 25, 2011
It’s not until towards the end that the commentary turns to its conclusion. For that it drew on a commentary in the Financial Times by Thomas Wright, executive director of studies at The Chicago Council on Global Affairs.
Wright argues:
This approach unfortunately has an unsustainable double standard: while Barack Obama’s strategy treats cyber destruction by someone else as an act of war, his administration’s actions imply that cyber-destruction by America is a normal covert action, equivalent to espionage. – Financial Times, June 26, 2011.
And the Voice of Korea agrees:
There is a saying “he who digs a pit for others falls into it.”
The United States persists in conspiratorial cyber warfare on other countries by abusing latest science and technology in a bid to realize its strategy of domination but it is seriously hit by hackings at home. – Voice of Korea, July 25, 2011.
You can hear the full commentary here:
[audio:https://www.northkoreatech.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/110801-vok-ushack.mp3]
