SYSTEMIC SELECTION
North Korea set up a cyber unit in 1998 but elevated its status after Kim came to power and declared in 2013 that cyber warfare was, along with nuclear weapons and missiles, an “all-purpose sword” crucial to the country’s strike capability.
Candidate selection begins in middle school as early as 11 or 12 years of age, with authorities picking about 150 to 200 children a year to study computer science, said Kim Heung-kwang, the former trainer, and two defectors who worked in IT.
At 17, the top performers are sent to North Korea’s best universities and undergo further screening before a chosen few finally enter the military’s cyber unit as hackers, they added.
They are trained in areas such as cryptocurrency protocols and reverse-engineering foreign hardware devices in addition to more conventional topics such as advanced mathematics and foreign languages, one of them said.
Those who do not become hackers are trained to turn out software or apps for Western firms via remote jobs.
“While South Korea’s best students may pursue medicine or other prestigious careers, North Korea channels top talent into nuclear and cyber programs and essentially guarantees their future,” said Lim Jongin, professor emeritus at the school of cybersecurity at Korea University.
Other privileges on tap for the hackers are travel abroad to allied countries, such as China, where they can more freely access the internet.
Successful exploits can earn as much as 30 per cent of the heist’s profits in US dollars for the hackers’ military unit, and they can even receive a flat in the capital where their parents can also stay, Kim said.
“There are accounts that successful cyber personnel are given apartments in Pyongyang,” Lim said, adding that the flats could range to as much as 1,420 sq ft.
Such performers are also eligible for membership of the ruling party and high-status marriages into elite families, said one of the defectors.
But it is a small group. The North’s cyberwarfare operations employ about 8,400 people, South Korea’s National Intelligence Service estimated in 2024.
North Korean state media do not publicly celebrate such hackers’ achievements, but they regularly highlight students who show talent for programming.
In 2015, North Korea opened the Mirae Scientists Street in the capital, in the construction of which Kim Jong Un had been closely involved, state media said.
Hackers’ formal designation in the North was “scientist” or “researcher”, said one of the defectors.