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2022 | OriginalPaper | Chapter

Cyber Arms Control on the Korean Peninsula: Challenges and Opportunities with a View to North Korea’s Asymmetry Strategy

Authors : Sangho Lee, Maximilian Ernst

Published in: Cybersecurity Policy in the EU and South Korea from Consultation to Action

Publisher: Springer International Publishing

Abstract

North Korea’s defence strategy relies on its nuclear arsenal as strategic deterrent and on cyber capabilities as weapons technology to retain the strategic initiative during peacetime and to support kinetic attacks during conflict. Due to the advantageous cost-benefit ratio of cyber weapons compared to conventional and nuclear weapons, North Korea has invested considerably in cyber capabilities to underwrite its asymmetry strategy targeted at the US-ROK alliance. In combination with frequent occurrences of cybercrime and terror originating from North Korea, this has led to a proliferation of cyber attacks and exacerbated cyber insecurity on the Korean Peninsula. South Korea, the main target of North Korean cyber attacks, has furthermore proven unable to develop cyber defence capabilities able to sufficiently protect its military and civilian networks. Against this background, this chapter investigates the possibility of a cyber arms control regime on the Korean Peninsula. Fashioned after existing arms control regimes, this chapter proposes an inter-Korean cyber arms control agreement.

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previous chapter Developing a Collective Retorsion Framework Against Malicious Cyber Operations: Opportunities and Steps for EU-South Korea Cybersecurity Cooperation

next chapter Arms Control in the Cyber Domain: A European Approach to Mitigate Digital Threats

Jin Moo Kim, “The Reality of North Korea’s Conventional Power: Transition to Asymmetric Strategy,” in North Korea Conundrum, ed. Un-Chul Yang (Seongnam: Sejong Institute, 2019), 55.

Peter Rosen, “Competitive Strategies: Theoretical Foundations, Limits, and Extensions,” in Competitive Strategies for the 21st Century: Theory, History, and Practice, ed. Thomas G. Mahnken (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2012), 18-19.

Jenny Jun, Scott LaFoy, and Ethan Sohn, “North Korea’s Cyber Operations: Strategy and Responses” (Washington, DC: Center for Strategic & International Studies, 2015), 24.

Dal Hyung Bae, “North Korea’s Cyber Threat and Options for South Korea’s Policy Improvement and Capability Enhancement” (Korea Research Institute of Strategy Policy, Seoul, 2011), 7-8.

Marcus Willett, “Assessing Cyber Power,” Survival 61, no. 1 (January 2, 2019) https://doi.org/10.1080/00396338.2019.1569895, 87.

Maximilian Ernst and Sangho Lee, “Countering Cyber Asymmetry on the Korean Peninsula: South Korea’s Defense Against Cyber Attacks from Authoritarian States,” Journal for Intelligence, Propaganda and Security Studies 15, no. 1 (2021): 165–79.

Kim, “The Reality of North Korea’s Conventional Power: Transition to Asymmetric Strategy,” 63.

Maximilian Ernst and Eliana Kim, “Economic Development Under Kim Jong-Un: The Added Value of Traffic Data and Established Indicators in the Study of North Korea’s Economy,” North Korean Review 16, no. 2 (2020): 26–48.

Mitch Shin, “What Is the Truth About COVID-19 in North Korea?,” January 6, 2021, https://thediplomat.com/2021/01/what-is-the-truth-about-covid-19-in-north-korea/.

An overview of North Korea’s ballistic missile arsenal is provided by: CSIS, “Missiles of North Korea,” Missile Defense Project (Washington, DC: Center for Strategic & International Studies, June 14, 2018), https://missilethreat.csis.org/country/dprk/.

“What Did N.Korea’s Nuclear Program Cost?”, The Chosun Ilbo, February 13, 2013, http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2013/02/13/2013021301335.html.

Nalani Fraser et al., “APT38: Details on New North Korean Regime-Backed Threat Group” (FireEye, October 3, 2018), https://www.fireeye.com/blog/threat-research/2018/10/apt38-details-on-new-north-korean-regime-backed-threat-group.html.

Daniel Palmer, “North Korean Hacking Group Lazarus Stole $571 Million in Cryptos: Report” (Coindesk, October 19, 2018), https://www.coindesk.com/north-korean-hacking-group-lazarus-stole-571-million-in-cryptos-report; Neil Mathew, “$571 Million: Notorious North Korean Hacker Group Has Stolen a Fortune in Cryptocurrency” (CCN, October 19, 2018), https://www.ccn.com/571-million-notorious-north-korean-hacker-group-has-stolen-a-fortune-in-cryptocurrency/.

Peter W. Singer, “The Cyber Terror Bogeyman” (Brookings, November 1, 2012), https://www.brookings.edu/articles/the-cyber-terror-bogeyman/.

Sangho Lee, “The Realities of Cyber War and Measures to Counter Future Cyberattacks (in Korean),” Shidae Jungshin, Autumn 2009.

Sangho Lee et al., “A Conceptual Study on Knowledge-Based Personal Information Gathering Methods for Conducting Psychological Warfare in Cyberspace,” in Convergence and Hybrid Information Technology, ed. Geuk Lee et al., vol. 310 (Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer Berlin Heidelberg, 2012), 287–93, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-32692-9_37.

Roberto J. González, “Hacking the Citizenry?: Personality Profiling, ‘Big Data’ and the Election of Donald Trump,” Anthropology Today 33, no. 3 (June 2017): 9–12, https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8322.12348

Dylan Stent, “Can the Cyber Terrorism Tactics of North Korea Be Deterred?”, The National Interest, September 23, 2018, https://nationalinterest.org/blog/skeptics/can-cyber-terrorism-tactics-north-korea-be-deterred-31662.

Lee, “The Impact of Advanced-Technology Cyber Weapon on the Future Conflict in the Korean Peninsula and East Asia,” 88.

Thomas Rid and Ben Buchanan, “Attributing Cyber Attacks,” Journal of Strategic Attacks 38 (n.d.): 1–37.

Seong Kyu Ahn, “Cyber Cancer: Can We Prepare for APT (Advanced Persistent Threat),” Column (Seoul: Asan Institute, August 5, 2015).

Seong Un Yoo, “Aegis, KF-16 Joint Operations and Core Secrets Were Hacked (in Korean),” Joongang Ilbo, September 10, 2015, https://news.joins.com/article/18631228.

Lee, “The Impact of Advanced-Technology Cyber Weapon on the Future Conflict in the Korean Peninsula and East Asia,” 97.

Ibid, 98.

John Richardson, “Stuxnet as Cyberwarfare: Applying the Law of War to the Virtual Battlefield,” John Marshall Journal of Computer and Information Law 29, no. 1 (2011): 1–28.

Brandon Valeriano and Rayn Maness, Cyber War versus Cyber Realities: Cyber Conflict in the International System (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 25.

Lee, “The Impact of Advanced-Technology Cyber Weapon on the Future Conflict in the Korean Peninsula and East Asia,” 99.

Prominent failed cases include the 2016 US-China cyber agreement: John W. Rollins, “U.S.-China Cyber Agreement” (Federation of American Scientists, October 16, 2015), https://fas.org/sgp/crs/row/IN10376.pdf.

Sean M. Lynn-Jones, “A Quiet Success for Arms Control: Preventing Incidents at Sea,” International Security 9, no. 4 (1985): 154–84; April Carter, Success and Failure in Arms Control Negotiations (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989); Matthew Fuhrmann and Yonatan Lupu, “Do Arms Control Treaties Work? Assessing the Effectiveness of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty,” International Studies Quarterly 60, no. 3 (September 2016): 530–39, https://doi.org/10.1093/isq/sqw013.

Markus Maybaum and Jens Tölle, “Arms Control in Cyberspace – Architecture for a Trust-Based Implementation Framework Based on Conventional Arms Control Methods,” in Cyber Power (8th International Conference on Cyber Conflict, NATO, 2016), 161.

Paul Meyer, “Cyber-Security through Arms Control: An Approach to International Co-Operation,” The RUSI Journal 156, no. 2 (April 2011): 25, https://doi.org/10.1080/03071847.2011.576471.

Ibid, 25.

Ibid., 25.

Eddie Segal, “The Impact of AI on Cybersecurity” (IEEE Computer Society, n.d.), https://www.computer.org/publications/tech-news/trends/the-impact-of-ai-on-cybersecurity.

Maybaum and Tölle, “Arms Control in Cyberspace,” 162.

Ibid, 165.

Ibid.

“UN GGE and OEWG” (Geneva Internet Platform, n.d.), https://dig.watch/processes/un-gge

Ahn, Seong Kyu. “Cyber Cancer - Can We Prepare for APT (Advanced Persistent Threat).” Column. Seoul: Asan Institute, August 5, 2015.

Bae, Dal Hyung. “North Korea’s Cyber Threat and Options for South Korea’s Policy Improvement and Capability Enhancement.” Seoul, 2011.

CSIS. “Missiles of North Korea.” Missile Defense Project. Washington, DC: Center for Strategic & International Studies, June 14, 2018. https://missilethreat.csis.org/country/dprk/.

Ernst, Maximilian, and Eliana Kim. “Economic Development Under Kim Jong-Un: The Added Value of Traffic Data and Established Indicators in the Study of North Korea’s Economy.” North Korean Review 16, no. 2 (2020): 26–48.

Ernst, Maximilian, and Sangho Lee. “Countering Cyber Asymmetry on the Korean Peninsula: South Korea’s Defense Against Cyber Attacks from Authoritarian States.” Journal for Intelligence, Propaganda and Security Studies 15, no. 1 (2021): 165–79.

Fraser, Nalani, Jacqueline O’Leary, Vincent Cannon, & Fred Plan. “APT38: Details on New North Korean Regime-Backed Threat Group.” FireEye, October 3, 2018. https://www.fireeye.com/blog/threat-research/2018/10/apt38-details-on-new-north-korean-regime-backed-threat-group.html.

Fuhrmann, Matthew, and Yonatan Lupu. “Do Arms Control Treaties Work? Assessing the Effectiveness of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.” International Studies Quarterly 60, no. 3 (September 2016): 530–39. doi: https://doi.org/10.1093/isq/sqw013.

González, Roberto J. “Hacking the Citizenry?: Personality Profiling, ‘Big Data’ and the Election of Donald Trump.” Anthropology Today 33, no. 3 (June 2017): 9–12. doi: https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8322.12348.

Jun, Jenny, Scott LaFoy, and Ethan Sohn. “North Korea’s Cyber Operations: Strategy and Responses.” Washington, DC: Center for Strategic & International Studies, 2015.

Kim, Jin Moo. “The Reality of North Korea’s Conventional Power: Transition to Asymmetric Strategy.” In North Korea Conundrum, edited by Un-Chul Yang, 55–81. Seongnam: Sejong Institute, 2019.

Lee, Sangho. “The Impact of Advanced-Technology Cyber Weapon on the Future Conflict in the Korean Peninsula and East Asia.” In North Korea Conundrum, edited by Un-Chul Yang, 83–106. Seongnam: Sejong Institute, 2019.

Lee, Sangho. “The Realities of Cyber War and Measures to Counter Future Cyberattacks (in Korean).” Shidae Jungshin, Autumn 2009.

Lee, Sangho, Jung-Ho Eom, Bonghan Lee, and Jin-Hyuk Choi. “A Conceptual Study on Knowledge-Based Personal Information Gathering Methods for Conducting Psychological Warfare in Cyberspace.” In Convergence and Hybrid Information Technology, edited by Geuk Lee, Daniel Howard, Dominik Ślęzak, and You Sik Hong, 287–93. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer Berlin Heidelberg, 2012. doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-32692-9_37. CrossRef

Lynn-Jones, Sean M. “A Quiet Success for Arms Control: Preventing Incidents at Sea.” International Security 9, no. 4 (1985): 154–84. CrossRef

Mathew, Neil. “$571 Million: Notorious North Korean Hacker Group Has Stolen a Fortune in Cryptocurrency.” CNN, October 19, 2018. https://www.ccn.com/571-million-notorious-north-korean-hacker-group-has-stolen-a-fortune-in-cryptocurrency/.

Maybaum, Markus, and Jens Tölle. “Arms Control in Cyberspace – Architecture for a Trust-Based Implementation Framework Based on Conventional Arms Control Methods.” In Cyber Power, 159–73. NATO, 2016.

Meyer, Paul. “Cyber-Security through Arms Control: An Approach to International Co-Opperation.” The RUSI Journal 156, no. 2 (April 2011): 22–27. doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/03071847.2011.576471.

Palmer, Daniel. “North Korean Hacking Group Lazarus Stole $571 Million in Cryptos: Report.” Coindesk, October 19, 2018. https://www.coindesk.com/north-korean-hacking-group-lazarus-stole-571-million-in-cryptos-report.

Richardson, John. “Stuxnet as Cyberwarfare: Applying the Law of War to the Virtual Battlefield.” John Marshall Journal of Computer and Information Law 29, no. 1 (2011): 1–28.

Rid, Thomas, and Ben Buchanan. “Attributing Cyber Attacks.” Journal of Strategic Attacks 38 (2015): 1–37.

Rollins, John W. “U.S.-China Cyber Agreement.” Federation of American Scientists, October 16, 2015. https://fas.org/sgp/crs/row/IN10376.pdf.

Rosen, Peter. “Competitive Strategies: Theoretical Foundations, Limits, and Extensions.” In Competitive Strategies for the 21st Century: Theory, History, and Practice, edited by Thomas G. Mahnken, 12–27. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2012.

Segal, Eddie. “The Impact of AI on Cybersecurity.” IEEE Computer Society, n.d. https://www.computer.org/publications/tech-news/trends/the-impact-of-ai-on-cybersecurity.

Shin, Mitch. “What Is the Truth About COVID-19 in North Korea?” The Diplomat, January 6, 2021. https://thediplomat.com/2021/01/what-is-the-truth-about-covid-19-in-north-korea/.

Singer, Peter W. “The Cyber Terror Bogeyman.” Brookings, November 1, 2012. https://www.brookings.edu/articles/the-cyber-terror-bogeyman/.

Stent, Dylan. “Can the Cyber Terrorism Tactics of North Korea Be Deterred?” The National Interest, September 23, 2018. https://nationalinterest.org/blog/skeptics/can-cyber-terrorism-tactics-north-korea-be-deterred-31662.

“UN GGE and OEWG.” Geneva Internet Platform, 2019. https://dig.watch/processes/un-gge.

Valeriano, Brandon, and Rayn Maness. Cyber War versus Cyber Realities: Cyber Conflict in the International System. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015. CrossRef

“What Did N.Korea’s Nuclear Program Cost?” The Chosun Ilbo, February 13, 2013. http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2013/02/13/2013021301335.html.

Willett, Marcus. “Assessing Cyber Power.” Survival 61, no. 1 (January 2, 2019): 85–90. doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/00396338.2019.1569895. CrossRef

Yoo, Seong Un. “Aegis, KF-16 Joint Operations and Core Secrets Were Hacked (in Korean).” Joongang Ilbo. September 10, 2015. https://news.joins.com/article/18631228.

Title: Cyber Arms Control on the Korean Peninsula: Challenges and Opportunities with a View to North Korea’s Asymmetry Strategy
Authors: Sangho Lee
Maximilian Ernst
Publisher: Springer International Publishing
Book: Cybersecurity Policy in the EU and South Korea from Consultation to Action
Print ISBN: 978-3-031-08383-9

Electronic ISBN: 978-3-031-08384-6

Copyright Year: 2022
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-08384-6_6

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