North Korea’s use of electronic attacks against civil aviation in the South has surged by 15 times this year, data shows, with Kim Jong Un‘s regime doubling down on tactics that have raised concerns at the United Nations.
GPS interference in the form of jamming and “spoofing”—broadcasting false signals to purposely confuse global positioning software used by aircraft and ships—has been reported 578 times between January and August, according to South Korea’s Dong-A Ilbo newspaper.
There were only 39 cases last year, and 26 total cases in the three years before that, the report said. Previously, the most intense period of attack—more than 1,400 cases—happened from 2010 to 2013, around the time Kim, now 40, became North Korea‘s supreme leader. Newsweek could not reach the North Korean embassy in Beijing for comment before publication.
The South Korean government has traced over 90 percent of this year’s cases back to the North, and it believes Pyongyang is responsible for the remaining instances, too, the paper quoted ruling party lawmaker Kwon Young-se, South Korea‘s former unification minister, as saying.
The cyberattacks are part of North Korea’s maturing electronic warfare arsenal—potentially effective against unmanned aerial vehicles operated by American forces stationed in the South. They have not resulted in any major aviation accidents to date, but GPS interference can endanger commercial airliners flying in poor visibility and is a violation of international conventions on navigational safety.
The majority of incidents were reported across five consecutive days between May 29 and June 2, when hundreds of civilian aircraft and ships reported suspected GPS jamming around the de facto inter-Korean sea border in the west, known as the Northern Limit Line.
The interference was reported as lasting anywhere from a few minutes to several hours.
They happened as North Korea launched several waves of trash-carrying balloons across the heavily fortified Demilitarized Zone into the South as retaliation for anti-North propaganda sent by rights activists via balloons.
In this photo provided by the North Korean government, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, center, visits a special operation forces unit at a Western district in North Korea October 2. North Korea’s state media quoted Kim as saying he would be prepared to use nuclear weapons against the South if provoked.
KCNA via AP
In June, a complaint lodged by South Korea to the International Civil Aviation Organization, a U.N. specialized agency, resulted in a rare direct rebuke, in which ICAO publicly demanded the North to cease the electronic interference.
Pyongyang has taken a sharp turn away from possible reconciliation with Seoul since the start of the year, a position it is expected to institutionalize in the coming days.
In a sign of renewed animosity between the neighbors, Kim on Friday said North Korea would “use without hesitation all the striking forces in its possession, including nuclear weapons,” if it were provoked, according to remarks carried by the official Korean Central News Agency.
A day earlier, Kim’s powerful sister, Kim Yo Jong, lashed out at South Korea for displaying its largest conventionally armed ballistic missile, which she described as an “odd monster” that fell short of the North’s own strategic arms.
