https://twitter.com/pearswick/status/607136295081512961
A group of South Korean cultural heritage officials and historians take the first shovelfuls of dirt during a ceremony held in the North Korean border town of Kaesong on June 4, 2015, to mark the start of this year’s inter-Korean joint excavation of the site of Manwoldae, a Goryeo Dynasty (918-1392) palace, in the city. The project will continue for six months until Nov. 30. (Yonhap)
If the North Koreans are planning to conduct a nuclear test it looks like it will be at least until the fall before it happens:
North Korea is unlikely to conduct another nuclear test at least until this fall, a U.S. think tank said Friday, citing satellite imagery showing no signs of preparations at the country’s underground test site.
“Recent commercial satellite imagery indicates that North Korea is conducting regular spring construction and maintenance activities at its Punggye-ri nuclear test site,” the website 38 North said in a report by analyst Jack Liu.
“There are no indications of nuclear test preparations at this time. Given the time and effort such preparations require, North Korea is unlikely to conduct another nuclear test until at least fall 2015 at the earliest,” the report said.
The North has conducted its three nuclear tests in 2006, 2009 and 2013, all at the Punggye-ri site in the country’s northeast. [Yonhap]
You can read more at the link.
ICYMI: NK states they are developing new satellite, defends space program http://t.co/ZZ4GXIvxen
— KEI (@KoreaEconInst) June 5, 2015
North Korea blasted "rotten and corrupt capitalist societies" in commemoration of International Children's Day http://t.co/XOghsVv931
— Elizabeth Shim (@GlobalAsianista) June 1, 2015
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un inspects a tree nursery being constructed by the Korean People’s Army in this composite photo released by the North’s state-run Rodong Sinmun newspaper on May 29, 2015. The nursery, which covers an area of about 1.98 million square meters, consists of various facilities for nursery tree production. Kim was accompanied by his sister, Kim Yo-jong, who made her first public appearance in 47 days amid rumors of giving birth. (Yonhap)
It is well known that the North Koreans have decent hacking capabilities, but if they were to attempt to take out a nuclear plant I think the gloves would have to come off to deal with them:
A North Korean defector who worked as a university professor in the country has said in an interview with the BBC that North Korea now has over 6,000 hackers.
Professor Kim Heung-Kwang taught science at a university in North Korea for 20 years. But he defected in 2004 and fled the country.
Speaking to the BBC, Kim estimated that up to 20% of North Korea’s military spending goes toward Bureau 121, the army unit believed to focus on hacking.
Kim suggests the capabilities of North Korea’s hackers are significant. He said “their cyberattacks could have similar impacts as military attacks, killing people and destroying cities.”
Another claim made in the interview is that North Korea is working to develop its own malware based on Stuxnet. North Korea was named responsible for the Sony Pictures hack, in which it used modified computer software to hack into Sony Pictures and take over the company’s servers. But now Kim says the country wants to develop a new type of malware that can target nuclear plants. [Business Insider]
You can read more at the link.
This report is not really surprising because infecting North Korea’s nuclear program with a Stuxnet like virus would be far more challenging than Iran. Reportedly the US and Israel were able to infect the Iranians’ nuclear program with the virus despite it being on a closed Intranet. They did this by infecting a worker’s USB thumb drive with the virus who then plugged it into a computer within the intranet. With Iran being a more open society it would be easier to place intelligence assets within the country to pull off such an attack. In North Korea it would be much more difficult due to the closed nature of their society where most people are not even free to move about the country without an official permit much less get close enough to a nuclear facility to identify ways to infect their systems:
,
The United States tried to deploy a version of the Stuxnet computer virus to attack North Korea’s nuclear weapons program five years ago but ultimately failed, according to people familiar with the covert campaign.
The operation began in tandem with the now-famous Stuxnet attack that sabotaged Iran’s nuclear program in 2009 and 2010 by destroying a thousand or more centrifuges that were enriching uranium. Reuters and others have reported that the Iran attack was a joint effort by U.S. and Israeli forces.
According to one U.S. intelligence source, Stuxnet’s developers produced a related virus that would be activated when it encountered Korean-language settings on an infected machine.
But U.S. agents could not access the core machines that ran Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons program, said another source, a former high-ranking intelligence official who was briefed on the program.
The official said the National Security Agency-led campaign was stymied by North Korea’s utter secrecy, as well as the extreme isolation of its communications systems. A third source, also previously with U.S. intelligence, said he had heard about the failed cyber attack but did not know details.
North Korea has some of the most isolated communications networks in the world. Just owning a computer requires police permission, and the open Internet is unknown except to a tiny elite. The country has one main conduit for Internet connections to the outside world, through China. [Reuters via a reader tip]
You can read more at the link, but I am sure the North Koreans are smart enough to not be using USB thumb drives thus meaning their systems are likely only vulnerable to an insider attack.
It looks like the North Koreans will probably start another provocation cycle whenever this rocket launch site upgrade is complete:
Satellite imagery shows significant new construction at North Korea’s main rocket launch site in a sign of leader Kim Jong Un’s determination to pursue a space program despite international censure, a U.S. research institute said Thursday.
North Korea is barred under U.N. Security Council resolutions from launching rockets as that technology can also be used to launch ballistic missiles. Kim, however, declared this month that its space program “can never be abandoned.”
North Korea has been upgrading the Sohae launch site on its west coast since mid-2013 after it blasted its first rocket into space in December 2012. It says the space program is peaceful.
The U.S.-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies says the North completed an expansion of its launch tower late last year to take larger rockets. Commercial satellite imagery shows that since then, the North has been working on a support building and what appears to be a moveable platform to allow an assembled rocket to be shifted on rails to the launch pad. The institute likens it to facilities in China but says there’s no publicly available evidence to suggest Beijing is providing help.
The most recent image is from May 16.
“The Sohae facility upgrade program represents a significant investment of financial, material and personnel resources and is another indicator, along with its public statements, that North Korea is determined to pursue its space program,” read the analysis provided to The Associated Press ahead of publication on the institute’s website, 38 North.
Satellite imagery analyst Tim Brown writes that the expansion of the launch tower suggests the North wants to field a larger space launch vehicle, which may also contribute to its development of long-range ballistic missiles. [Associated Press]
You can read more at the link, but considering all the construction going on the North Koreans are clearly having a lot of money coming in despite financial sanctions.
"Sponsors…focus more on the ‘defector’ part rather than the value of being a ‘WBA World Champion’." @NewFocusINTL http://t.co/iLG0HMbBOs
— Liberty in North Korea (@LibertyinNK) May 28, 2015
