Anonymous attacks North Korea

Even as it threatened to attack South Korea, North Korea —or at least its presence on the Internet— itself came under attack from online hacktivist collective Anonymous.

 

North Korea's main news website went offline, while its official Twitter and Flickr accounts were defaced on Thursday afternoon.

 

The Uriminzokkiri.com news and information site was offline as of 5 p.m. Thursday (Manila time), which a report on The Next Web said could be due to a denial-of-service (DoS) attack.

 

Meanwhile, several posts on North Korea's Twitter account (Twitter.com/uriminzok) bore the message "Hacked." Even the Twitter account's profile photo was changed to show two people dancing the tango, with the message "Tango Down."

 

Not even North Korea's Flickr account was spared, featuring photos with the Guy Fawkes mask; a black background with the message "We are Anonymous"; and a parody of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

 

The Next Web said hackers from Anonymous earlier claimed to have taken 15,000 passwords from North Korea’s Uriminzokkiri.com news and information site.

 

It said this was in response to the North Korean regime and its nuclear weapons program.

 

The Next Web cited an April 3 PasteBin note from Anonymous scoring Kim Jong Un and claiming to be able to manage this crisis "the peaceful way." — TJD, GMA News