On 01 Oct 2017, TransTeleCom, a Russian owned telecommunications company began routing North Korean Internet. TransTeleCom owns one of the largest fiber optic cable based networks in the world. It is a fully owned subsidiary of Russian Railways, a joint-stock company with 100 percent involvement under the Russian Ministry of Transport. North Korea’s external Internet connections were historically serviced by China Unicom, but will now be provided by both China Unicom and Russia’s TransTeleCom. IPv4 traffic route allocation is 60 percent through TransTeleCom and 40 percent through China Unicom. Unicom will continue providing 100 percent IPv6 routing for North Korea. The contract between TransTeleCom and North Korea was originally signed in 2009. The recent Russian telecommunications escalation seems to be in support of North Korea after U.S. Cyber Command Distributed-Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attacks. Having routes in both China and Russia limits North Korea’s dependence on any one country as they are currently facing intense geopolitical pressures. North Korea’s shift from being predominantly Chinese hosted, to Russian support, is primarily due to U.S. political pressure on China to sever ties with North Korea over the recent nuclear missile tests and China’s failure to protect North Korea from the recent U.S. DDoS attacks. TransTeleCom operates similarly to China Unicom, the current North Korean Internet Service Provider (ISP), which has fiber optics laid along China’s Sino-Korean Friendship Bridge. However, TransTelecom is believed to be delivering North Korea’s Internet over the Korea-Russia Friendship Bridge, the only crossable border between North Korea and Russia. Wapack Labs will continue to monitor malicious cyber activities out of North Korean netblocks....READ MORE
Wapack Labs has cataloged and reported on North Korean cyber activity in the past. An archive of related reporting can be found in the Red Sky Alliance portal.
