"North Korean University Students Sweep 1st to 6th Place in US Hacking Competition, Focusing Solely on Hacking Skills"

Local Media "Competition Plays Role in Enhancing Hacking Skills"
Expert "North Korea's Hacking Level Recently Improved Significantly"

North Korean university students swept the top ranks at a competition attended by 1,700 hackers worldwide.

Kim Chaek University of Technology in North Korea announced on its website on the 3rd that its students scored a perfect 800 points and took first place at the hacking competition (May Circuits ’23) held in the United States from May 20 to 27.

The competition was hosted by HackerEarth, an India-based IT company headquartered in San Francisco, USA, with over 1,700 participants from around the world.

The second place was taken by a student from Kim Il Sung University, and third place by a student from Kim Chaek University of Technology, resulting in North Korean university students winning gold, silver, and bronze medals.

Kim Chaek University of Technology, which produced not only the 1st and 3rd place winners but also those ranked 4th to 6th, 9th, and 21st, stated on its website, "We are not complacent with this achievement and are making doubled efforts to achieve even greater results next time."

Kim Il-sung University of North Korea Advanced Technology Development Institute
[Photo source=Chosun Ilbo website] [Image source=Yonhap News]

Radio Free Asia reported, "IT experts in the United States expressed concerns that such competitions could play a significant role in enhancing North Korean students' hacking skills and that these skills might be used in North Korean cybercrime."

On the 6th, Annie Fixler, Director of the Cyber and Technology Innovation Center at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), said, "It is known that hackers are being trained at North Korea’s Kim Il Sung University and Kim Chaek University of Technology," adding, "Some of the top students are mobilized for global hacking attacks."

Seongsoo Park, a researcher at the international cybersecurity firm Kaspersky, also stated, "The level of Korean language-based hacking groups such as Lazarus, ScarCruft, and Kimsuky has significantly improved compared to a few years ago."

He added, "The tools and malware they use have become quite sophisticated, and they are applying various attack methods adapted to changes in the IT environment."

Although the top three winners of the HackerEarth competition receive gift certificates worth a total of $225, Radio Free Asia reported that it is unclear whether North Korean students actually received these prizes.

Last month, North Korea attempted hacking using phishing sites that replicated domestic portal sites like Naver in real time. The National Intelligence Service believes that the attack methods have diversified to make it difficult to distinguish the sites based on appearance alone, increasing the possibility of personal information theft.