South Korean experts on North Korea have claimed that Pyongyang is recruiting additional computer experts to launch large-sized cyberattacks on South Korea.
 
Research fellows Chung Ku-youn and Lee Ki-tae of the Korea Institute for National Unification(KINU) made the warning in a report released on Friday.
 
The report noted the North has established cyberwarfare command, employing around one-thousand-700 hackers. It said the hackers who come from seven hacking groups are officially under the command of the North’s military and the ruling Workers’ Party.
 
The report also said the North also has around six-thousand staff assisting its hackers, which raises the total number of its cyberwarfare personnel to seven-thousand-700. 
 
The researchers said the former North Korean leader Kim Jong-il had ordered the strengthening of the regime’s cyber warfare capability since the Iraq War in 2003, calling the 21st century an era of information war.
 
The North’s known cyberattacks on the South began in 2009. 

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