North Korea Empowers 'General Reconnaissance Bureau': Escalation in Cyber Warfare?

[Anchor]

North Korea has announced plans to expand the mission and capabilities of the General Reconnaissance Bureau, which operates under the General Staff Department of the Korean People's Army. As the agency is known to command North Korean hacker groups such as Lazarus and Kimsuky, concerns are rising that the North's cyber offensives will intensify.

Reporter Kim Ayeong has the story.

[Reporter]

From the July 7 DDoS attacks in 2009, which targeted the websites of the Blue House and the National Assembly, to the assassination of Kim Jong-nam, the half-brother of Kim Jong-un, in Malaysia in 2017.

The Reconnaissance General Bureau under the General Staff Department of the Korean People's Army has been identified as the mastermind behind major North Korean provocations against the South and overseas operations.

After rebranding the organization as the General Reconnaissance Bureau, North Korea has now signaled that it will expand its scope of operations.

This announcement came during an enlarged meeting of the Central Military Commission of the Workers' Party of Korea, held yesterday (July 9) and presided over by Kim Jong-un.

[Korean Central Television: We will diversify and expand the functions and missions of the General Reconnaissance Bureau, which plays a key role in managing threats from potential adversaries and collecting critical intelligence.]

The regime also stated that tasks and measures were presented to significantly enhance military reconnaissance and intelligence-gathering capabilities.

Considering that the General Reconnaissance Bureau is known to serve as the control tower for North Korean hacking groups like Lazarus and Kimsuky, there is a possibility that cyberattacks and data theft activities could be strengthened across the board.

Experts analyze that it is also noteworthy that the targets of their intelligence activities were not limited to South Korea-U.S. or South Korea-U.S.-Japan relations, but were broadly described as potential adversaries.

[Lim Eul-chul / Professor at the Institute for Far Eastern Studies, Kyungnam University: This should be viewed as an organizational restructuring with modern warfare, information warfare, and especially cyber warfare in mind. It is interpreted as an intention to expand the scope beyond just mentioning South Korea to a level that encompasses NATO countries as well.]

The existence of the General Reconnaissance Bureau was first identified in September last year, when Pak Jong-chon, Vice Chairman of the Central Military Commission, mentioned that he had received a report there regarding the simultaneous commencement of South Korea-U.S. and South Korea-U.S.-Japan military exercises.

(Video reporting: Jo Chun-dong | Video editing: Kim Jong-tae)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.