Adam Daniel Mezei's posterous

(What’s Bam Bam smiling about now?)

Given the sheer lawlessness of North Korean society and how practically any sort of mayhem could take place there without notice, it’s not an entirely implausible notion that a debilitating cyber attack against the US might emanate from within its borders. Apparently, Bam Bam has at his disposal a $56M slushy war chest for precisely these sorts of cyber-actions.

More to our purposes, let’s examine the rudiments of how such an attack might go forth in the event the Dear Leader chucks all caution to the wind and finally goes for broke in the waning days of his hapless reign.

I also strongly encourage you to have a read of the linked article as it quotes famous hacker Charlie Miller‘s recent speech to NATO about this very subject. Miller briefly goes into how a North Korean cyber attack would play out.

Cheap machines that wreak havoc:

The caliber of technology we’re talking about here isn’t state-of-the-art. There are enough second-hand pieces of gear out there that can capably achieve Bam Bam’s aims.

Used machines would have as their ultimate purpose the direct infiltration of the United States’ critical telecommunications networks (not the National Security Administration/NSA, as that would be too heavily firewalled).

Miller describes how botnets — when a host computer is infiltrated and begins to do a cyber attacker’s bidding — would be triggered and programmed to detonate on the very same day. He uses as an example the so-called “Zero Day” bug which he described to delegates at a recent NATO speech. Zero Day can lie dormant for as long as 348 days before being summoned. All it would take it for someone to talk into a control room, plug in a USB key with the offending virus, upload, and walk away. Weeks later, the attack command would be issued and the sum of all our fears would play out.

Coordinated from a central location like Pyongyang which the world has virtually no access to, a proliferating virus would be almost impossible for tech experts to trace. The original outbreak of a hostile e-attack might even be blamed upon politically-sensitive nations like China or Russia, and implicating them in a scandal might be part of Bam Bam’s grand design, as had happened during January 2010′s apparent “Chinese” cyber-attack on Google.

Why a North Korean cyber-attack just might work:

There would be scant incentive for the US/ROK alliance to retaliate against Pyongyang in the event critical US or South Korean telecom networks were compromised. Why?

For one, what could they possibly damage there, other than crushing what little infrastructure remains for the DPR Korea’s citizenry outside its capital? A strike against the north would only cast it into an even darker shadow, with untold deprivation in its aftermath, greater than what the country endured during the so-called Arduous March famines of the nineties.

As described by hacker Miller, once a virus would “leave the building,” North Korea would be essentially scot-free. Counter-accusations might even be leveled against the United States by North Korea for the US’ wanton aggression against an otherwise blameless nation. Since no proof of the virus’ existence in North Korea, would be found or for even having emanated from there it would essentially mean the event didn’t even happen. Kim has proven to be beyond wily when it comes to skulduggery of this ilk.

Then there’s the on-again, off-again nuclear threat, the poisoned chalice that the South Koreans and their American allies are reticent to quaff from.

If US/ROK retaliation for a perceived North Korean cyber-attack were on the order table, Bam Bam might just crank up his ol’ whirling rhetoric machine and counter with threats to let fly Seoul- and Osaka-bound nuke-tipped missiles from Yongbyon. This alone — if the past decade-plus is any indication — would be justification enough to put the kibosh on any potential spanking the Americans and ROK Forces might wish administer on Bam Bam’s Paradise On Earth.

So where does that leave things?

As usual, Kim has all his turtledoves in a row. We’re starting at our usual series of if-then scenarios.

To wit:

Scenario #1: If the North Koreans cyber-attack US/ROK telecommunications networks and drumbeat against Pyongyang, Kim will unsheathe his nuclear rapier. And never one to be pushing an already unstable silent-but-deadly demagogue into passing his personal point of no return, Washington will back off and “negotiate” an amicable solution with the Non-proliferating Six Parties at a so-called “neutral” location, possibly at November’s G20 Summit in Seoul.

Scenario #2: If the Americans refuse to believe Kim’s nuclear threat is credible and advise the ROK to promptly attack North Korea for a) the DPRK’s perceived hack-attack and b) March 25, 2010′s sinking of the Cheonan, the Chinese aren’t going to take any of this sitting down. Wanting affairs to stay as “harmonious” as possible on the Korean peninsula, and doing anything in its power to thwart a northern influx of stark raving DPRK refugees into Yanbian across the Yalu and Tumen Rivers, Beijing will use every diplomatic trick in the book — from economic sanctions to Security Council vetoes — to prevent the South Koreans from laying a finger on any of Pyongyang’s chinny-chin-chin hairs. And no one seems to want to tussle with the Chinese these days for some reason.

Scenario #3: If the Koreans don’t heed either the PRC’s broad warnings or their American handlers’ sharp advice to play things cool and instead launch perhaps a seabound strike across the Northern Demarcation Line (where the Cheonan went down), Bam Bam might be tempted to press that godforsaken red nuke button of his. Worse yet, while Kim himself might want nothing to do with a nuclear holocaust on his soil, the present power rift in his security apparatus caused by his choice of youngest son Kim Jong-un as successor might take things out of his hands. It could mean ever direr consequences than the Cheonan. Its sinking may even have been a prelude heralding something eminently worse. “Rogue generals” within Kim’s security system might have wished to send an unequivocal signal to Kim on who’s really running the show.

Conclusion:

In advance of September’s Korean Worker’s All-Party Congress (KWP Congress), things may yet remain tranquil. But given what happened this March, nothing is ever predictable up on the Kim Farm.

Four weeks between now and then along the 248km stretch of the 38th? In North Korea, that’s like eons.