week8.html

<title> CS349 Spring 2019: Robert McInvale</title>
<h1 style = "font-size:300%;"><b> Robert McInvale CS 349 Blog</h1></b>
<h2 style = "font-size:200%;">Week 8 - Technology in Warfare</h1></b>

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On March 3rd, 2019, McAfee revealed that North Korean hackers had launched cyber attacks on over 100 targets, both inside the US and in allied countries<sup>1</sup>. These attacks continued a series of offensive cyber operations begun by North Korea 18 months prior, and took place during President Trump’s disarmament talks with North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un. The attacks targeted well-positioned executives at tech companies, with an apparent goal of gaining access to critical technological information at important corporations and governmental organizations around the world.
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For a year and a half, North Korea has been launching attacks of this type against the US and its allies, beginning at a time when tensions were very high between the two countries<sup>1</sup>. While one can only guess at their true motivations, many of the North Korean targets have been powerful corporations and industries connected to the United States, and at least some of their actions appear to have been executed with the goal of financial gain. While McAfee was able to discover the technical details and origins of many of this round of online assaults, North Korea has shown no sign of slowing or backing down in its cyberwarfare activities. 
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While these attacks are worrying, they are also not surprising, and North Korea has been performing similar disruptive activities since at least 2014, when it shut down Sony Pictures in retaliation for perceived slander against Kim Jong Un in a movie Sony was making<sup>2</sup>. Personally, I believe that the main goal of North Korea’s cyber warfare branch is simply to sow fear and cause chaos for its enemies. This would be consistent with other actions by the paranoid nation state, which constantly engages in aggressive, hyperbolic rhetoric with the free world and has frequently made threatening military gestures in the general direction of Japan and South Korea. These cyber attacks simply mark a new front for their war of bluster, and while they certainly can’t be ignored, I think it is yet to be shown that they pose a significant new threat to democracy.


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<sup>1</sup><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/03/technology/north-korea-hackers-trump.html">https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/03/technology/north-korea-hackers-trump.html</a></br>
<sup>1</sup><a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2014/12/18/sony-hack-timeline-interview-north-korea/20601645/">https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2014/12/18/sony-hack-timeline-interview-north-korea/20601645/</a></br>