A Russian telecommunications company began providing an internet connection to North Korea over the weekend according to 38 North, a North Korea monitoring project run by Johns Hopkins University.
The new connection provided to the isolated nation comes from TransTeleCom and serves as just the second link the the internet available in North Korea. Prior to the Russian service, North Korea relied solely on a connection provided by China.
38 North reported the connection first appeared online at around 5:38 p.m. local time in North Korea. The link may have doubled the nation’s bandwidth, providing North Korea with higher resilience against cyber attacks directed at the country and additional resources for attacks launched from within the nation’s borders.
TransTeleCom issued a brief statement following 38 North’s report on the apparent internet access being provided by the Russian company to North Korea, though did not directly address the possibility that it is helping North Korea stay connected.
“TransTeleCom (TTK) has historically had a connection to the communication network of North Korea under the agreement with Korea Posts and Telecommunications Corp, which was signed in 2009,” the company said.
The telecommunications firm is a subsidiary company of Russian Railways, a state-owned organization that maintains a monopoly over the Russian rail system. Russian Railways president Oleg Belozyorov was named to the head of the company after members in the inner circle of Russian President Vladimir Putin lobbied for him.
TransTeleCom has become one of the largest telecommunications providers in Russia by laying fiber optic cables alongside the massive stretches of railway owned by the parent company. According to a map on the company’s website, one of its routes runs directly up to the North Korean border.
Source: http://www.ibtimes.com/russia-providing-north-korea-internet-access-assists-cyberattacks-2596508