When thinking of certain countries, various images may arise.

When I think of France, I think of Macron and macarons, of love and the eiffel tower.

When I think of India, I think of rupees and curry, of rich culture and lavish weddings.

But when thinking of North Korea, dictatorship and nukes come to mind.

It’s safe to say that North Korea hasn’t gotten the most positive media representation, and for good reason. They consistently make headlines for testing and advancing their nuclear weaponry, violating peace, and the corruption of their familial leadership.

North Korea is rightfully regarded as a threat. But it seems as though the popular media has forgotten one of the greatest threats that this nuclear crazed country has been working on during these past few years: cyber warfare.

North Korea’s cyber warfare capabilities are as big, if not a bigger threat to international safety than nuclear weapons. Oxford defines cyber warfare as “the use of computer technology to disrupt the activities of a state or organization, especially the deliberate attacking of information systems for strategic or military purposes.” Simply put, North Korea has hackers to destroy and dissect infrastructure, online programs, and everything dealing with cyber security. And in a world dependent on technology and modern infrastructure, this presents a major problem.

The first red flag is North Korea’s rapid advancement of their cyber warfare capabilities. They have secretly built an army of at least 7000 hackers to find secrets, disrupt infrastructure, steal money, and target US power plants, dams, and grids. These hackers have been trained in China and Russia, making it difficult to expose and uncover their work. This army is coined as APT38; otherwise known as the Lazarus Group and Hidden Cobra.

This extremely skilled group of hackers poses a massive threat to the world. In 2016, they stole 40,000 defense documents with information on F-16 fighters and drones from South Korea. They also allegedly stole the US military’s confidential operation plan, Op Plan 5027, which was a war layout.

Additionally, North Korean cyber warfare is dangerous because it boosts the Kim regime economically. Hackers have stolen $2 billion by infiltrating cryptocurrency exchanges with the goal of funding the North Korean nuclear weapons program. Also, with these cyber warfare capabilities, hackers are enabled to steal from banks. This means that they can effectively counter economic sanctions. If North Korea is denied $1 billion in agricultural sales, they can simply use cyber warfare hacking to attain $1 billion.

It’s important to note how North Korean cyber warfare not only makes sanctions useless, but how this hacking can free their economy, giving them the resources and millions of dollars to support their ballistic missile program. These capabilities are limitlessly powerful, which is why they pose such a great threat to the world. In fact, even more so than nuclear weapons, which are dependent on the funds garnered from cyber warfare to exist.

Lastly, of course, cyber warfare is incredibly dangerous due to its lethality. Hacking can kill, and actually has a slower and longer impact on civilians than nukes. These skills can be used to corrupt traffic lights, for example, or whole electrical grid systems. Power plants and dams could be hacked and destroyed, having deathly mass effects. Civilians die from lack of food, power, heat and gas, and car crashes when basic infrastructure is disrupted. More terrifying, perhaps, is the fact that North Korea had used cyber warfare to hack a South Korean hydro nuclear power plant in the past.

Ultimately, with its effects running deeper and more destructive than nuclear weapons, cyber warfare is not to be underestimated, and should be internationally be regarded as more of a threat.

<Clara Son / Orange County School of the Arts 10th Grade>