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| A soldier walks past a TV showing an advertisement for Sony Pictures' "The Interview" at Seoul Station, Monday. / AP-Yonhap |
Obama says not yet but experts disagree
By Yi Whan-woo
North Korea's alleged hack of Sony Pictures raises questions about whether state-sponsored cyber terror should be redefined as an act of war in the Internet era.
The United States has fallen short of calling it that but is facing a great deal of internal and external pressure to address the North's online attacks as bellicose behavior.
Experts predict that it is only a matter of time before cyber attacks are called a new form of warfare and dealt with as nothing short of being aggression that is tantamount to the accepted definition of war.
For U.S. President Barack Obama, such a cyber attack is still not seen as an act of war, although he accepted the Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI) conclusion that Pyongyang was behind the hack.
"I think it was an act of cyber vandalism that was very costly, very expensive," Obama said in an interview with CNN Sunday. He pointed out that the FBI on Friday accused North Korea of being responsible for breaking into the computer system of Sony Pictures, which Pyongyang previously denounced for its satirical film about North Korea called "The Interview."
The U.S. President, however, may re-consider his choice of words if the reclusive state targets U.S. government facilities.
Meanwhile, the Seoul government's joint investigation unit said Sunday that North Korea is on the list of its suspects in its probe into a leak of confidential information about two of the country's nuclear reactors — Gori 2 and Wolsong-1 — on the Internet.
A hacker on Saturday revealed manuals and designs of the two nuclear reactors run by the state-run Korea Hydro and Nuclear Power Co. The information includes floor maps and plans for the air conditioning and cooling systems of the reactors.
According to critics, such a leak is expected to deal a blow to export-reliant South Korea's nuclear plant construction business overseas, including Argentina, Jordan, Malaysia, Thailand, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and Vietnam.
In the case of Sony Pictures, the company suffered a massive leak of private information about its employees and clips of unreleased films.
"A lot of military experts now see cyber terror has emerged as a new form of warfare," said Shin In-kyun, president of the Korea Defense Network, a military think tank.
"For instance, South Korea and the U.S. have been running a cyber warfare command that is led by a general. In particular, that unit in Washington is led by a four-star general, signifying the growing importance of cyber terror as a part of war."
Yang Uk, a senior research fellow at the Korea Defense Security Forum (KODEF) agreed.
"Cyber attacks have become an effective means for a country to perplex its enemies before regular or other forms of traditional warfare begin," he said.
However, military experts were divided over Washington's move to put North Korea back on a list of states that sponsor terror, a designation lifted by the Bush administration in 2008.
According to Shin, Obama is on the "right track" in terms of his policy against cyber terror.
"I think Obama has suggested a new guideline to cope with cyber attacks and ways to deal with them.
"In the case of South Korea, we have suffered from financial damage rather than physical damage or human casualties when North Korea attacked us in the past."
In 2009, Cheong Wa Dae, the Ministry of Defense, the National Assembly as well as the country's media firms and commercial banks saw their websites slowed or crashed. It took time for those sites to regain services. The country's spy agency speculated the attacks appeared to have been carried out by North Korea or pro-North Korean groups.
"A number of our transportation, energy and other social infrastructure systems are controlled by computers," Shin said. "It's possible that hackers could cause two trains to collide or cut the gas supply in the winter, which obviously would cause mass casualties.
"It's critical to take preemptive measures against cyber terror to prevent such things from happening."
Kim Dae-young, a KODEF researcher, said the U.S. was "overreacting."
"North Korea already faces sanctions from the United Nations and other parts of international community," he said.
"Putting North Korea back on the list of state sponsors of terrorism will not make much difference unless the U.S. comes up with something more effective."
Yang agreed, saying, "A strong follow-up measure is needed if Washington intends to pressure Pyongyang by putting the regime on such a list."
