North Korean Cyber Attacks and Policy Responses: An Interdisciplinary Theoretical Framework

Abstract

Study conducts a qualitative analysis of the objectives, forms, current trends, and characteristics of North Korean cyber terror attacks and suggests a way to ensure further progress towards a successful international policy response. Despite the capricious changes that have recently occurred within the international political atmosphere, North Korea continues to constitute a threat to international stability through its ongoing advancement of nuclear weapons and long-range ballistic missiles. The difficulty of attribution and the relatively low costs associated with launching cyber offensives make cyber terrorism an attractive option for North Korea. In an effort to direct attention to these circumstances, this study aims to share explicit experts’ perspectives in the field of cyberterrorism in South Korea. Consequently, the study purports to contribute to existing academic discussion and practices on cyber terror and cybercrime. Furthermore, this study adopts perspectives from criminological theoretical frameworks and the network theory of world politics to substantiate a more comprehensive view of North Korea’s cyberterrorism which considers the multifaceted and asymmetrical nature of cyberterrorism within the context of postmodern international politicsfections.

Mapping the global geography of cybercrime with the World Cybercrime Index

“…Instead, looking at in-depth qualitative cybercrime case studies would provide a better comparison, at least for the small number of higher ranked countries. Though few such studies into profit-driven cybercrime exist, and the number of countries included are limited, we can see that the top ranked countries in the WCI match the key cybercrime producing countries discussed in the qualitative literature (see for example [ 3 , 10 , 32 , 46 – 50 ]). Beyond this qualitative support, our sampling strategy–discussed in the Methods section above–is our most robust control for ensuring the validity of our data.…”