A lone hacker on a revenge mission says he is the one who keeps turning off North Korea's internet
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
North Korea disappeared from the internet at least twice in the past month , with state-run websites becoming inaccessible in what some observers speculated was a distributed denial-of-service attack on the country's servers. In a report published Tuesday, a lone hacker bent on revenge told Wired that he was responsible for crippling the secretive country's internet.
The American hacker — who goes by the handle P4x — told Wired he was one of the victims of a cyberattack last year on Western security researchers carried out by North Korean spies. He said he was frustrated that he was a target and that the US appeared to have a lacking response.
He said the hackers tried to snatch hacking tools and information on software vulnerabilities but he was able to stop them before they could get anything worthwhile. Nonetheless, there was a feeling of resentment, he told Wired.
"It felt like the right thing to do here," P4x told Wired, adding: "If they don't see we have teeth, it's just going to keep coming.
"I want them to understand that if you come at us, it means some of your infrastructure is going down for a while."
North Korea's mysterious internet outages appeared around the same time the country was conducting record-breaking illegal weapons testing as it fired missile after missile. The timing of these developments led some expert observers to suspect that a state actor, such as the US, might be targeting North Korea, but P4x said that was not the case.
Wired reported that P4x provided screen recordings demonstrating his responsibility for the attacks on North Korea's web servers. Insider has not reviewed these.
While the hacker was open about claiming responsibility for the attacks, P4x declined to disclose the vulnerabilities in the North Korean system he said he found and exploited to single-handedly take down the entire country's internet on multiple occasions. He did say the attack was largely automated.
He told Wired it was "pretty interesting how easy it was to actually have some effect in there."
P4x also told Wired he was trying to recruit more "hacktivists" to join a dark website he launched earlier this week called the FUNK project — which stands for FU North Korea.
"You can make a difference as one person," the FUNK website reads, according to the report from Wired. "The goal is to perform proportional attacks and information-gathering in order to keep NK from hacking the western world completely unchecked."
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Normally I unapologetically death wish all hackers, but this is refreshing.
I saw this story earlier and cracked up. I fully support freelance hacktivism against bad actors.
Don't generalize them. There are black, white, and grey hat hackers (think Gandalf).
Black hatters are the ones to wish death on.
White hatters are the ones that find and report weaknesses in firewalls, OS's, applications, and such.
Grey hatters, like this guy, can go either way.
I’m not tech savvy enough to know the difference. All I know is that when I see an article with the word ‘hacker’ in the title, it’s usually not good news.
Very legitimate concern.
keep in mind, next time you see an article about Microsoft updating to close a security flaw, that flaw was found and reported by white hat hackers.
Same with all the anti-virus companies, and any company that develops software for computers, phones, tables, etc. Most "security" updates are installed to prevent weaknesses discovered by these white hat hackers.
Same with all the anti-virus companies
I can appreciate that, although sometimes it feels more like the fox is guarding the hen house.
Good for him. He saw the Brandon Administration wasn't going to do a damn thing (no surprise there) and took matters into his own hands.
Lol. That was probably your quickest random knee jerk anti Biden reaction to date. Your Go Brandon game is strong! Maybe Biden needs to pen some love letters to Kim?
First Biden will have to get someone to tell him which Kim it is. Second he will want to know what her hair smells like.
WWIII will start over a confused Joe Biden hair sniff.
...that's okay. we'll reconstitute the draft starting with the opposite end of any age requirements this time. then we can attract more super patriots that have previously demonstrated willful ignorance and blind loyalty to lost causes. /s
Which means a lot of dope smoking hippies that avoided the Vietnam War will be drafted again. Great thinking! This time you will get them to serve for sure!
Glad you admit Biden is a lost cause. You realize any military action will be served under him right? After Afghanistan all of our allies don't want to see Joe Biden in charge of the US military, including Joe Biden!
dress warm and watch that first step off the c130 ramp, it's a doozy... /s
... says cold war relics. lookout for those commies... /s
weed - saving republican lives for over 100 years...
... kind of like ignoring the /s tag at the end of my comment twice?
... typical uninformed and partisan comment.
That's all he's got.
You must admit that his ability to turn any story into a partisan smear is unparalleled.
Then feel free to provide something to prove it "uninformed".
if you don't believe that the national intelligence agencies have an interest in cyber space, and you were allegedly in the military, that's on you. prove it to yourself, if you're able, I only like to go off topic with my friends.
That only proves you can type. Not something to prove it "uninformed".
All you ever say is 'prove it' while NEVER PROVIDING ANY FACTS OR PROVING ANYTHING YOURSELF.
most of them can't...
Please cite the actions taken by Trump after the NK cyberattacks during his term. I'll wait...
... don't hold your breath.
Trump was tough on North Korea. /s
That’s one of those videos that I can only watch a few seconds of. It is absolutely insane that that person held any political office at all in this country.
I hope P4x gets pissed at the Russian hackers.
... along with his friends. free lance hacktivision is the logical response to state sponsored cybercrimes.
Unfortunately, while NK is generally 10+ years behind the times in regards to technology, Russia tends to be more up to date than us.