North Korea Disinformation Profile

From ADTAC Disinformation Inventory

North Korea Domestic Disinformation

Foreign Disinformation Campaigns

North Korean Propaganda is known for being relatively unsophisticated towards international audiences.[1] However they are making attempts to create sleeker more nuanced propaganda through social media personalities like Un A.[2][3]

In 2010 North Korea launched accounts on Twitter, Facebook, Youtube and Flickr.[4][5][6] In 2018 North Korea operated 160 propaganda websites.[7] According to the Korea Institute of Liberal Democracy, at the end of 2017 North Korea had about 7,000 agents engaged in propaganda work.[8] The Enemy Collapse Sabotage Bureau's Unit 204 is an information warfare unit that is designed spread propaganda and recruit South Korean collaborators.[9]

According to The Korea Institute of Liberal Democracy there are roughly 300 North Korean agents who work to manipulate online opinion, mainly in South Korea, through blog posts, video clips, and online comments.[10] Because South Korean social media often requires verified personal information, North Korean agents need to use illegally acquired personal information from South Korean citizens.[11] These accounts work to portray North Korea in a favorable light and generate polarization in South Korea.[12]

Impersonation

The Google Threat Analysis Group found that North Korean agents frequently impersonated news outlets or journalists in order to feed false stories to journalists.[13]

North Korea also uses false identities online in order to obtain freelance income online which is a way to avoid the sanctions placed on North Korea.[14]

In 2020 a North Korea hacked a Food and Agriculture Organization email account in order to impersonate the FAO and send a false story about COVID-19 in North Korea to Voice of America which they later published.[15] The FAO rejected the story and acknowledged the hack.[16][17]

North Korea created fake social media profiles on Twitter and Linkedin, where they set up fake blogs where they got guests to write posts about software bugs. They contacted actual researchers and asked to work together with them, they would then share collaboration tools which contained malware.[18]

  1. https://www.belfercenter.org/sites/default/files/2019-06/PAE/DisinfoWatch%20-%202.pdf
  2. https://www.nknews.org/2020/05/whats-up-pyongyang-north-korea-experiments-with-vlogging-to-fight-fake-news/
  3. https://keia.org/the-peninsula/fake-news-from-pyongyang-how-north-korea-is-using-the-internet/
  4. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/facebook/7957222/North-Korea-joins-Facebook.html
  5. https://www.youtube.com/user/uriminzokkiri
  6. https://web.archive.org/web/20101220010559/https://www.flickr.com/photos/uriminzokkiri/page3
  7. https://thediplomat.com/2018/07/north-koreas-influence-operations-revealed/
  8. https://thediplomat.com/2018/07/north-koreas-influence-operations-revealed/
  9. http://csis-website-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/legacy_files/files/publication/151216_Cha_NorthKoreasCyberOperations_Web.pdf
  10. https://thediplomat.com/2018/07/north-koreas-influence-operations-revealed/
  11. https://thediplomat.com/2018/07/north-koreas-influence-operations-revealed/
  12. https://www.state.gov/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Weapons-of-Mass-Distraction-Foreign-State-Sponsored-Disinformation-in-the-Digital-Age.pdf
  13. https://blog.google/threat-analysis-group/identifying-vulnerabilities-and-protecting-you-phishing/
  14. https://www.state.gov/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Weapons-of-Mass-Distraction-Foreign-State-Sponsored-Disinformation-in-the-Digital-Age.pdf
  15. https://en.yna.co.kr/view/AEN20200213005151325
  16. https://en.yna.co.kr/view/AEN20200213005151325
  17. https://www.fdd.org/analysis/2020/04/01/north-korea-turns-to-cyber-disinformation-attacks-amid-global-coronavirus-outbreak/
  18. https://www.ft.com/content/d1587d7b-0679-4c6d-a422-135d5e27f33b