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Juan Carlos López
Senior WriterAn engineer by training. A science and tech journalist by passion, vocation, and conviction. I've been writing professionally for over two decades, and I suspect I still have a long way to go. At Xataka, I write about many topics, but I mainly enjoy covering nuclear fusion, quantum physics, quantum computers, microprocessors, and TVs.
Karen Alfaro
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Internet access failed across North Korea for several hours this weekend. At first, it seemed reasonable to suspect a cyberattack from abroad—possibly retaliation for recent hacks by Lazarus, North Korea’s elite hacker group, targeting foreign institutions and companies. But according to Reuters, several experts say the disruption likely came from inside the country, not from an external cyberattack.
UK researcher Junade Ali monitors North Korean network behavior. Martyn Williams, a North Korea technology and infrastructure expert at the Stimson Center in Washington, said the outage appeared internal, especially since both China- and Russia-based connections were affected. The country’s main news services, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and national airline Air Koryo were among the websites that went dark for several hours.
North Korean Citizens Don’t Have Free Access to the Internet
North Korea has one of the most restricted Internet infrastructures in the world. The government strictly controls it to preserve the country’s isolation and ensure that the Kim Jong Un regime maintains full control over what citizens can access. As a result, North Koreans experience a far more limited version of the Internet than users in most other countries.
Some institutions inside North Korea have full or near-complete Internet access.
Still, some institutions inside North Korea have full or near-complete Internet access. Though heavily supervised, government-backed hackers, political elites, military officials, state agencies, and scientists reportedly use a much broader range of online resources than the general population.
It’s worth noting that North Korea connects to the global Internet through just two fiber-optic links: one with China, managed by China Unicom, and another with Russia.
Perhaps the most surprising aspect for outsiders is that ordinary citizens don’t use the Internet at all. Instead, they connect to a closed national intranet called Kwangmyong, which means “bright light.” Predictably, Kwangmyong is isolated from the global Internet and features only government-approved content.
Available resources include state news, propaganda, educational websites, encyclopedias, and an internal email system—and little else.
Image | Steve Barker (Unsplash)
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