The US has intensified a “cyber threat” racket against the DPRK this year more than ever before.

From the beginning of the year, the White House, the State Department, the Defense Department, the Justice Department, the Department of Homeland Security, the Treasury Department and other federal government agencies have come out picking on the “cyber threat” from the DPRK and even offering prize money on it. In tandem with this, civil cyber security enterprises are jumping on the anti-DPRK bandwagon while circulating fabrications about the “cyber threat” from the DPRK.

Recently, the Department of Homeland Security, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Treasury Department made public what is called a “joint alert” warning against the “cyber threat” from the DPRK. After that, an official from the spokesperson’s office of the State Department made a nonsensical remark that the DPRK is financing illegal weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missile programs through its cyber activities.

As already known, the word “cybercrime” was coined in the US.

The US has taken advantage of its hegemonic position in the IT industry to systematically conduct espionage activities against other countries since a long time ago.

It is the US which astonished the whole world by tapping the phone calls of leaders of its allies, to say nothing of its enemies. It also carried out more than 61 000 hacking operations under the internet surveillance program such as “PRISM”.

Recently, it was revealed that a hacker group under the US Cyber Command has committed hacking attacks termed “TV Screen Action” for the past 10-odd years against 45 countries and regions, including China, Russia, Japan, south Korea, India, the UK, Germany, the Netherlands, Austria, Thailand, Egypt and Brazil, much to the consternation of the international community.

In February, it was exposed that an American hacker publicly admitted to committing a hacking attack against our country to draw the attention of the media.

An anonymous hacker named “P4x” said that he hacked into north Korea’s internet homepages for external information on January 26. He continued to blow his own trumpet that he is planning to steal and share information with direct penetration into internet homepages in the future, too, even though his act might have violated the US law on prohibition of computer fraud and abuse.

As he had admitted, hacking attack is against the US law, not to mention international law.

Nevertheless, the US does not say a single word about the illegal hacking by its citizen. Instead, it is hell-bent on picking on the nonexistent “cyber issue” of other countries.

This is tantamount to the guilty party filing the suit first.

Crystal clear is the intention of the US which comes out with “cyber threat” from the DPRK at every possible opportunity.

It is to tarnish the image of the DPRK and maintain the international atmosphere of sanctions and pressure against it.

This is clearly proved by the fact that the US urges not only the government agencies but also civil organizations and individuals to kick up a row about “cyber threat” from the DPRK.

We flatly reject the baseless “cyber threat” spread by the US and brand it as a grave infringement on the sovereignty of our state.

The US should be well aware of the fact that the more desperately it clings to the “cyber racket” against the DPRK, the more it will exert a bad influence on the already strained DPRK-US relations and the greater failure and frustration it will suffer.