A lone hacker from America has taken down North Korea’s internet connection paralyzing government websites as a brutal act of revenge.
The American man, who is also known as P4X was one of several Western security researchers who were allegedly hacked by North Korean spies in a campaign just over a year ago.
So as his revenge, while sitting at home in his Pajamas watching Alien and eating spicy corn snacks, P4x decided to take his computer in retaliation, aiming to disrupt the countries internet.
He claimed that he was part of those who become a victim of the hackers of North Korean spies in January 2021. While those trying to hack him reportedly came up empty-handed, P4x decided to hit back with his own hands after he saw a lack of response from the US government.
A spokesperson for the FBI said: “As the lead agency responsible for threat response we rely on the public and private sector to report suspicious activity and intrusions and work together to ensure we understand what’s happening, prevent it from happening to others, and hold those responsible accountable.”
“The FBI is committed to pursuing the malicious actors and countries behind cyberattacks, and will not tolerate intellectual property theft or intimidation,” the spokesperson added.
However, for P4x this statement is not enough, and hacking North Korea’s internet felt like the right thing to do. He explained: “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 infrastructures is going down for a while.”
As he examines the national operating system of North Korea named Red Star OS, P4x discovers a series of unpatched vulnerabilities in the country’s systems, so he launches denial-of-service attacks spanning the last two weeks.
North Korea’s internet-connection networks rely on the servers and routers P4x attacked, leading to nearly all of the country’s websites going down at some point. North Korea only has a few dozen websites, its residents instead mostly use the country’s internal intranet.
P4x said: “For me, this is like the size of a small-to-medium penetration test. It’s pretty interesting how easy it was to have some effect in there.”
Junade Ali, a Cybersecurity researcher who monitors the internet in North Korea, explained: “As their routers fail, it would then be impossible for data to be routed into North Korea. The result of which would effectively be a total internet outrage affecting the whole country.”
Martyn Williams, a researcher for 38 North Project, a North Korea-focused initiative started by the Stimson Center believes that P4x is directing his attentions to the wrong place if he is going after the people who hacked him in January 2021 incident.
Williams suggested the hackers are based in other countries such as China. Williams said: “But if he just wants to annoy North Korea, then he is probably being annoying.”
P4x considers his attacks to be the same as tearing down government banners or defacing buildings. The next stage of his plan is to recruit more “hacktivists” to join a dark website, under his “FUNK” project which stans for “FU North Korea”, which he already launched this week.
P4x said: “This is a project to keep North Korea honest. You can make a difference as one person. The goal is to perform proportional attacks and information-gathering to keep NK from hacking the western world completely unchecked.”
He promises to share all of the information he can get from his hacks with experts, while on the other hand, he is also aware that somehow, he is also breaking some hacking laws himself.
P4x said he “definitely wanted to affect the people as little as possible and the government as much as possible”, adding that his “conscience is clear”.
He clarifies that his goal is to specifically target Kim Jong-un’s regime which he says is exhibiting “insane human rights abuses and complete control over their population.”
He then joked: “Regime change. No, I’m just kidding. I just want to prove a point. I want that to be very squarely proven before I stop.”