Confessions of a foot soldier who worked for North Korea’s secret ‘hacker’ army
A FORMER foot soldier from North Korea’s secret “hacker” army has spoken about the working conditions and tasks he was forced to handle on a daily basis.
IF YOU spotted him on the streets of Seoul’s booming Gangnam district, you wouldn’t think he was a former-foot soldier from North Korea’s secret army.
Yet, for more than half a decade Jong Hyok* worked with other men from the confines of a crowded three-storey home in a northeastern Chinese city.
He was tasked with making money for North Korea by any means necessary, with the group believed to have raised hundreds of millions of dollars through nefarious hacking techniques.
Before defecting from the regimen in Pyongyang, Hyok operated as a senior member of the secret army and was personally responsible for bringing in around $127,000 per year — an amount he was only able to keep around 10 per cent of.
The early stages of the project were established during the 1990s when Kim Jong-il — father of current leader Kim Jong-un — put programming and the use of modern technology at the forefront of the country’s focus.
By the latter part of the decade, Kim Jong-il had formed a cyber army tasked with hacking government websites and banking networks.
But when he died in 2011 and Kim Jong-un took the reigns, things became much more sinister.
Not only did the North Korean leader start rewarding computer scientists with nicer homes and higher salaries, but he encouraged the secret army to increase attacks on nuclear plants, defence networks, financial institutions and other targets of high importance.
Despite wanting to be a doctor, Hyok was forced into the hacking world by the state after they discovered his impressive test scores at school.
As his parents were faithful to the regime, there was no discussion to be held — Hyok would study computer science, end of question.
By the late 1990s, he found himself studying in China under the strict supervision of a North Korean minder.
Luckily his minder was relaxed and allowed Hyok to experience a life of drinking and dancing with his fellow Chinese students, but the biggest difference of life in China was having internet access that wasn’t as strictly controlled as it was back in North Korea.
“I felt like a colt cut loose on the field,” he told Bloomberg.
After he graduated, Hyok returned to North Korea, but was soon told he would go back to China to conduct software research that would be used to “brighten the future” of North Korea’s information technology sector.
LIFE IN THE HACKER ARMY
When Hyok arrived at the three-storey house in which he would live and work, he noticed portraits of Kim Jong-il and Kim Il-sung covering the walls.
Cubicles and computers were located on the lower floors, while cots and bunks for sleeping were on the top floor.
Working with graduates from North Korea’s elite universities, Hyok’s first money-making scheme saw him pirate and distribute commercial software such as video games and security programs.
One of the more popular scams involved creating bots for online games Lineage and Diablo, which would be used to level up characters that would later be sold to gamers for $127.
All the money earned was then paid to a “chief delegate” who worked alongside another minder from North Korea’s state police who was tasked with handling any security issues.
Hyok said while his efforts were lucrative, he saw very little of the money.
“Elite programmers? No way. We were just a bunch of poor, low-paid labourers,” he said.
While he wasn’t involved in the theft of credit card numbers or installing ransomware on corporate servers — the most recent example being WannaCry — Hyok said there is no doubt these acts are being carried out on a regular basis.
“North Korea will do anything for money, even if that means asking you to steal,” he said.
Hyok said the hackers were told they would be sent home if they didn’t meet targets known as juk-bol-e — roughly translates to “enough to buy a bowl of soup”.
And if hackers were found to be skimming profits, they faced even worse consequences, which mainly involved being sentenced to hard labour at a factory or farm.
The latter might sound like a nightmare, although Hyok suggests it would have been on par with some of the conditions other hackers working for different government agencies and state-affiliated corporations faced — examples included people forced to work with tuberculosis, a cockroach lodged in an employees ear and brutal beatings at the hands of colleagues.
THE FINAL DAYS
After working in China for a number of years, Hyok found himself involved in an “unsavoury incident” with a government official.
The result of the incident meant he had the choice to flee or face the inevitable consequences.
Choosing to flee, he spent the following two years on the run in southern China. Returning home was no longer an option as it would have been punishable by death.
When Hyok started running out of options, he purchased a fake Chinese passport for $2000 and travelled to Bangkok before fronting up at the South Korean embassy.
He was required to spend a month undergoing a security check in the compound before being flown to Seoul, where he now works at a local software security company.
While he has managed to leave his hacking days behind him, Hyok said he still can’t escape his past entirely.
“I feel like my value as a programmer is discounted by half when I tell people I’m from North Korea,” he said.
Head of the department of cyberdefence at Korea University in Seoul Lim Jong-in said even though Hyok has left his past life, North Korea’s hacking efforts are as strong as ever.
“North Korea kills two birds with one stone by hacking. It shores up its security posture and generates hard currency,” he said. “For hackers, it offers a fast track to a better life at home.”
* Name changed to protect identity.
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