North Korea: 1.2 Million Troops, Nukes and a 3,000-Strong Cyber-Elite

North Korea, Dec. 22 (NsNEwsWire) — North Korea’s alleged ability to hack into Sony Pictures Entertainment is extending Kim Jong Un’sreach far beyond the range of his missiles.

While North Korea has kept Western defense officials guessing for years about a nuclear program that it may or may not ever use, the regime’s ability to wage cyber war adds a new dimension to its standing abroad, reports bloomberg.

“There is this image that North Korea never carries through on its threats,” said Bruce Klingner, senior research fellow on Northeast Asia at the Heritage Foundation in Washington and former deputy division chief for Korea at the Central Intelligence Agency. “But it sometimes does carry through. You can’t always dismiss North Korea threats as simply being words.”

The Kim family is often mocked in European and U.S. media for its style of totalitarian rule and bursts of anti-Western invective. And yet, poking fun at the regime’s eccentricity ignores North Korea’s technological prowess in areas where it chooses to pour resources. South Korea has already accused the North of numerous attacks over the past five years, and now Pyongyang may be showing its global reach.

In June, North Korea promised to “mercilessly destroy’’ anyone associated with “The Interview,” a Sony Pictures action-comedy movie about a plot to assassinate Kim. Six months later, Sony Pictures pulled the movie from release after hackers invaded its computer systems.