First, North Korea is no stranger to the espionage scene, with a history of spy infiltration to other nations to obtain valuable information. Recently, the hermit kingdom has adopted cyberwarfare to hone its already formidable spy networks.

Mastermind behind “WannaCry”

Apparently, North Korea was asserted by the United States, United Kingdom and Australia behind the attack of the ransomware crypto-worm that affected about 200,000 computers across 150 countries last year.

It was one of the most unprecedent ransomware incident that occurred in history since its initial outbreak over the May 12-15, 2017 period. One of its most famous victims was the UK’s National Health service hospitals in England and Scotland where over 70,000 devices were affected. However, North Korean authorities denied any wrong doings after that.

Phishing lure ahead of the Summit

In gathering more information for the Trump-Kim summit, North Korean hackers allegedly created a malware dubbed NavRAT for a campaign of phishing attacks on South Korea’s email platform.

Apparently, the malware acted as a lure for web-users interested in the US-North Korea summit as it was distributed via decoy Hangul Word Processor (HWP) documents which is a common format in South Korea with the subject line “Prospects for US-North Korea Summit.hwp.

Cisco Systems’ Talos threat intelligence division believed that the malware, NavRAT had been placed in the South Korea-based Naver Corporation’s email platform since 2016.

No to Nuclear, Yes to Cyber weapon?

In choosing to give up between nuclear arsenal and cyberwarfare, Cory Gardner, US Senator felt that North Korea will rather stick to its guns on the latter.

“There is little hope, however, that the North Koreans will give up their cyber weapons.” said Gardner on his interview with Politico ahead of the summit.

Besides, North Korea has the habit of escalating their cyberattacks in major summit event such the one between South Korean president Moon Jae-In and Kim earlier in the year. Thus, the summit between Trump and Kim will be no exception, with North Korean hackers launching te attacks, while US on the defense.

“There is no precedent for negotiating a country’s cyber capabilities away, and there would be no way to verify or enforce the agreement,” concluded Gardner.

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