CYBERATTACK

North Korea Is Back Online

Country offline for nine hours.

North Korea’s Internet has returned, more than nine hours after the country experienced a massive Internet outage Monday. Tech experts said the duress placed on the Hermit Kingdom’s network was consistent with a cyberattack. Pyongyang has denied that its agents are responsible for hacking into Sony’s email database in retaliation for The Interview. Despite North Korea’s professed innocence, President Obama has threatened “measured retaliation” against Kim Jong Un’s regime. A U.S. official declined to tell the Associated Press whether the U.S. was behind the attack.

Doug Madory, the director of Internet analysis at Dyn Research, said earlier Monday that a denial of service attack on North Korea could be under way. Experts floated a number of theories, including one that posits North Korea shut off its own connectivity to prevent citizens from reading about the Sony hack crisis and also to block a U.S.-based cyberattack. Another finger could be pointed at China, which grants North Korea Internet access through its telecommunications network.