The evil geniuses behind the cyberwar against Sony Pictures may be really smart teenagers tapping away on computer keyboards as part of an elite unit of the North Korean army.
The hackers are suspected members of North Korea’s computer warfare team known as Unit 121, or Bureau 121, London’s
Daily Mail newspaper reported Thursday.
"The unit dances to the tune of Kim Jong-Un and his Reconnaissance Bureau," the newspaper said, referring to the North Korean leader who is obsessed with computer video games.
Kim has called cyberattacks a "magic weapon" that the repressive communist regime uses primarily against democratic South Korea. But Unit 121 has reportedly expanded activities to other international targets.
The army’s cyberwarfare division recruits children who are proficient in math and computer skills and sends them to special high schools and then for advanced training to one of four North Korean universities — Kim Il-sung Military University, Command Automation University, Kim Chaek University of Technology or Moranbong University.
Kim Heung-kwang, a North Korean cyberwarrior who defected to South Korea, said that students and their families compete to get a space at the cyberwar universities because they get lavish benefits if they graduate into Unit 121.
But first they must get into the elite Keumseong One or Two high school in the North Korean capital of Pyongyang.
"There is a pyramid-like prodigy recruiting system, where smart kids from all over the country — students who are good at math, coding and possess top analytical skills — are picked up to be grouped at Keumseong," he said in an interview with
Al Jazeera in 2011.
"When they graduate [from Keumseong], they are sent to attend North Korea's top technology institutes and universities, such as the Kim Il Sung University, Kim Chaek University of Technology, and various others."
Hewlett Packard, in an extensive report earlier this year said, "Cyber warfare is simply the modern chapter in North Korea’s long history of asymmetrical warfare. North Korea has used various unconventional tactics in the past, such as guerrilla warfare, strategic use of terrain, and psychological operations."
The FBI suspects that North Korea hackers attacked Sony Pictures because the Hollywood movie studio was set to release a comedy called "The Interview" about two journalists who assassinate the North Korea leader.
Sony withdrew the film after hackers warned of terrorist attacks if the movie were released, and theater owners refused to show the picture.
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