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US hacker 'in his pyjamas' takes down North Korea's internet

An American hacker 'in his pyjamas' has taken down North Korea's internet in revenge for a cyber attack carried out against him by Pyongyang.

The hacker, who has been named only as P4x, launched repeated 'distributed denial of service' (DDoS) attacks against the communist state, crippling the country's few government-operated public-access websites and slowing email traffic.

DDoS attacks flood a system with fake traffic, consuming available bandwidth and limiting processing capacity of servers so that a website becomes unavailable.

Experts suspected the hacks were being done in response to a recent spate of missile tests that have been carried out by Pyongyang, of which there have been six in recent weeks, raising alarm bells in the region and drawing condemnation.

But according to Wired Magazine, the DDoS attacks were not the work of the intelligence agencies of any of the world's big players.

Instead, 'one American man in a T-shirt, pyjama pants and slippers, sitting in his living room night after night, watching Alien movies and eating spicy corn snacks,' was responsible, the magazine wrote, 'periodically walking over to his home office to check on the progress of the programs he was running to disrupt the internet of an entire country.'

P4x told Wired he was able to exploit vulnerabilities in North Korea's out-of-date operating systems, and launch his attacks from the comfort of his own home.

'It felt like the right thing to do here. If they don't see we have teeth, it's just going to keep coming,' he told the publication. 'I want them to understand that if you come at us, it means some of your infrastructure is going down for a while.'

He explained that his cyber attacks on the state came after he himself was unsuccessfully targeted by Pyongyang, with DPK hackers attempting to break into his own personal network a year ago to get access to his hacking technology.

He was able to catch the breach, open the file the hackers used in an attempt to gain access to his network with a virtual computer (thus isolating the breach), and study it himself. He found the hack had been launched, to his surprise, from North Korea.

He added that he reported the incident to American authorities such as the FBI, but was ignored. 'If no one's going to help me, I'm going to help myself,' he said.

Nice! Yup I believe the FBI didn't do squat. Our government is not going to protect us, time for us to take care of that ourselves.

Ignored by the FBI. I should be surprised by such a statement but I am not.

Even if they did investigate (which is a possibility) I would assume they would never admit involvement publicly. Though the days of me giving the FBI the benefit of the doubt are long gone

Blabbing to wired magazine might not be a wise move as the NORKS have carried out many assassinations and kidnappings on foreign soil.

Props to him for fighting back against that shithole country. I would be worried about retaliation and an unfortunate accident.

I would hope that anyone that describes themself as a “hacker” and is worth hacking by a foreign power and then creates a high level of mayhem in said country would have measures in place to hide his identity.

I would hope that he has friends with skills, and that they are ready. I'd luv an even happier ending. Make a good movie..

he should teach a shitload of people to do what he did

and we all take turns

I wonder if there are any US laws against hacking that will wind up being used against the pajama guy.

If so, he may actually get FBI attention, though perhaps not in the way we'd hope.

quote:

Originally posted by nhtagmember:
he should teach a shitload of people to do what he did

and we all take turns

This information is available on the 'net at no cost except your time and learning (which can be considerable). I'm sure there are more than a few "enter netblock to DDOS, and click here" websites out there (have your Bitcoin ready to pay for the service).

I am quite sure that the NSA and others have the capability to do something similar, but maybe not so much now that the NORKS have been alerted to their vulnerabilities. At the very least the commies may have to spend money that would otherwise be used for more nefarious purposes, and find/develop a bunch of new cyber-security guys. I suspect the cyber component will be the most significant contributor to victory or defeat in the next war.

One lesson we can take from this is to keep up with our security patches. Not that this eliminates all vulnerabilities, but maybe leaves only those that aren't public knowledge. Yes, this is a pain in the butt, and requires the most expensive currency there is (time and attention), but the alternative is that someone else owns your network, not you.

Of course, a DDOS doesn't necessrily require exploitation of a specific vulnerability, just enough resources to fund multiple points of attack. If you can infect and compromise third-party systems (e.g. by setting up a "hacker botnet") it just reduces the cost.

Keep running your purty little mouth son and you just might suicide yourself. Communist regimes gotta do what communist regimes got to do.

quote:

Originally posted by bubbatime:
Keep running your purty little mouth son and you just might suicide yourself. Communist regimes gotta do what communist regimes got to do.

Yeah, because the guy clearly doesn’t know shit about cybersecurity.

I bet the FBI comes to talk to him now as a suspect.

quote:

Originally posted by spunk639:
I bet the FBI comes to talk to him now as a suspect.

Julian Assange allegedly hacked the DNC and released embarrasing info. He is has been indicted by the U.S Government. If the pajama hacker was indicted by North Korea how could the government deny his extradition? Especially with a confession.

quote:

indicted by North Korea how could the government deny his extradition

I don't believe the US has an extradition treaty with NK.

quote:

Originally posted by spunk639:
I bet the FBI comes to talk to him now as a suspect.

Either that or to ask…”Hey man, can you show us how to do that?”

I have known a couple of recreational hackers in my previous career - not really malicious, but inclined to occasionally piss people off for fun. The ONE THING I did learn from them is to never ever motivate them because there is nothing more dangerous and vindictive than a motivated and dedicated hacker.

quote:

Originally posted by Southern Rebel:
I have known a couple of recreational hackers in my previous career - not really malicious, but inclined to occasionally piss people off for fun. The ONE THING I did learn from them is to never ever motivate them because there is nothing more dangerous and vindictive than a motivated and dedicated hacker.

The only thing that tops that is a whole group of them. Anonymous has been quiet for a long time, but they used to pull off some interesting stuff.

quote:

Originally posted by a1abdj:

quote:

indicted by North Korea how could the government deny his extradition

I don't believe the US has an extradition treaty with NK.

It's the Biden regime, droolin Joe might just come up with one.

quote:

Originally posted by P220 Smudge:
Anonymous has been quiet for a long time

I noticed this. I wonder why.