Hacker Who Took Down Internet in North Korea Shares Details

The hacker who took down the internet in North Korea for a week in January 2022 has finally come forward, giving people the chance to ask him any question they desire.

And after two years of anonymity, their identity has finally been revealed by Wired. The hacker’s real name is Alejandro Caceres – a 38-year-old Colombian-American, who lives in Florida and is a cybersecurity entrepreneur.

North Korea wasn’t a random target. In fact, it was a carefully planned attack to revenge on the nation for allegedly spying on Caceres and trying to steal his intrusion tools. The hacker wanted to gain access to zero-day vulnerabilities on Caceres’s system so that he could turn them into major cyber attacks.

‘It felt like the right thing to do here. If they don’t see we have teeth, it’s just going to keep coming.’ – Alejandro Caceres

Caceres was also enraged by the lack of response from the Department of Defence. As per him, the DoD did nothing except ask a few questions. This enraged him and he decided to take matters into his own hands.

Caceres Shares His Experience on Reddit

Here’s a glimpse into the most common questions and his answers to them:

1. Did the attack harm any civilians?

Caceres explained that in North Korea, only the elites who are part of the regime have access to the internet, and this attack was very targeted. Hence, no civilian was harmed. — they probably don’t even know about it.

2. Was it hard to take down the sites?

For him – No. But when he explained the process to the users on Reddit, a lot of people said that this indeed seems complicated. But since Caceres is a trained professional, it was easier for him.

3. Will there be any negative repercussions for his actions?

So far, he said there have been no negative consequences which was surprising, even to him. The only thing that happened after the matter became public was the intelligence agencies asked him how he did it. However, this does not guarantee that this incident won’t come to bite him back in the future.

He also left a message for the DoD (Department of Defense) and other intelligence agencies – if they want to work with him, they can send a request to his email.

Interestingly a Reddit user suggested the idea of opening a pipeline from North Korea’s limited intranet to the outside internet so that the citizens can have access to the outside world. Caceres admitted that this was one of his goals and he’s absolutely going to try it. It looks like Caceres isn’t stopping anytime soon.