Now, upon learning that kim jong un has agreed to do an interview with these two goofy americans from the tv show, the u. S. Government decides to take that opportunity to train those two americans to kill him, to kill kim jong un while they are sitting next to him to be able to do that interview. You are entering into the most dangerous country on earth. Kim jong uns people will believe anything he tells them, including that he can speak to dolphins or he doesnt urinate and defecate. Whoa, whoa. Youre telling me my man doesnt pee or poo . Everybody pees and poos. Otherwise wed explode. But he does talk to dolphins . Thats the movie. At least thats part of the trailer from the movie. Its called the interview. Produced in 2014 by Sony Pictures. And north korea got very angry about that movie, as you probably remember, and as you might imagine they would, right . They complained to other countries. They complained to the u. S. Government. They complained to the united nations. But ultimately what are you going to do, right . Ultimately north korea decide td didnt matter that nobody was listening to their complaints. They decided they would take matters into their own hands. They decided they would attack Sony Pictures. And initially, it seemed like kind of a goofy attack. On november 24th, 2014 employees arriving at work, at Sony Pictures, turned on their computers and this was on the screen. A picture of a big red horror movie skeleton. Hacked by gop doesnt mean republicans. Its like some other guardians of and it said, we have obtained all your internal data including your secrets and top secrets. I mean so this was on everybodys screens, which is a little scary. Theyd obviously been able to hack in for real, but this was kind of a goofy horror movie message, right . If you dont obey us, we will release data shown. The attack seemed somewhat effective but sort of amateurish from the outset. Turned out to be the real deal. They got in to the internal Computer Systems at Sony Pictures. They stole tons of internal communications and documents and scripts and contracts. They ended up basically doxing Sony Pictures by dumping that stuff online. The worst image they did, though, was not just by stealing and turning those documents back out to the public. The worst damage they did was just flat out destruction. They flat out wiped, just erased tons of data and documents and internal material from the computers operated by that company. They just wiped hard drives. They ended up essentially bricking 70 of the laptops and computers that were used at that entire company. At Sony Pictures, which is not a small company. Ultimately the movie did still get released. And although the north korean state Hacking Campaign against it ended up scaring the movie off of a lot of movie screens and theaters around the country, the movie did end up doing pretty great, streaming online, i think driven in part by this very weird antipublicity campaign conducted by north Korean Military intelligence calling this movie the most dangerous thing in the world. Now, that attack, 2014, the attribution for that attack specifically went to something called the reconnaissance general bureau, which is sometimes described as the equivalent of the cia in north korea but really its its own thing. Its foreign intelligence in north korea. Its cyberwar. Its cyberespionage. Sometimes its just plain war. I dont know what you call it when its hacking into a foreign movie studio and destroying their laptops. I dont know what you call that. But thats the group within the north Korean Military, north korean government that was got the attribution for that attack. Reconnaissance general bureau. That was 2014. The year before, in 2013, the u. S. And south korea were engaged in a joint military exercise. The u. S. And south korean militaries do joint exercises all the time. North korea tends to see them as very provocative. They essentially see these as practice sessions. If not raised to disguise the start of a real war. Some things about north korea are crazy. The particular perception that these military exercises might be a threat to them is not all that crazy. But their reaction to these frequent joint military exercises between the u. S. And south korea, their reaction to them is all over the map. Its unpredictable. Sometimes they have a mild reaction. Sometimes they have a super overthetop reaction. You never exactly know what theyre going to do. And in 2013, during joint military exercises between the south Korean Armed Forces and u. S. Armed forces, the way north korea decided to respond that year was with a cyberattack. Another really serious one. They all but wiped the Computer Networks at a bunch of major south korean banks and at the two largest broadcasters in south korea as well. They got malware into the systems of those companies as well and they just disappeared their data, wiped stuff, shut them down. Once youve got that kind of capability you have options for what to do with it. If you can get inside supposedly corporate and Financial Systems around the world, yes, they proved you can do damage, you can terrorize people. You can brick computers. You can spy on people. You can steal their documents p and post them online. You can hold stuff for ransom. But if youve got those kind of skills, you can do a lot of Different Things once youve penetrated other peoples Computer Networks. And once youve got the ability to do that, its not that big of a leap to just start going straight for money. This is the swift system. Society for worldwide interbank financial telecommunications. Which sounds fake, but its a real thing. Its an International System that thousands of banks and Banking Systems and businesses use to make Financial Transactions happen internationally. Well, in early 2016 hackers linked to north korea got into that system. And they didnt destroy documents. They didnt steal documents. They didnt wipe documents off peoples computer servers. In that attack they actually created fake documents that looked almost like the real thing. And with those fake documents inside that system they filed requests through the swift system. They filed requests that the Federal Reserve bank of new york should transfer they received a formal request. The Federal Reserve bank of new york, they should transfer a whole lot of money from the central bank of bangladesh to a random account that these hackers had access to in a third country. Much they filed a whole bunch of very officiallooking requests that said the fed in new york should make that transfer. Basically from the Bangladeshi Government to this offshore thirdparty account. In all they requested the fed move about a billion dollars that way. And most of those requests got rejected. The New York Times reported last year that one of the reasons that some of those requests were rejected is because the hackers tried to use the Word Foundation in one of their documents and they spelled it fandation instead, which is an unusual typo. And that unusual typo stood out. Some people who reviewed those requests, that block some of those requests from going through. So no, a billion dollars didnt get siphoned out of the central bank of bangladesh and sent to north korea. In fact, more than 90 of these requests got rejected. But even with 90 rejected if youre asking for a billion dollars you might still get something. In the end they still got 81 million approved. Through these fake transfer requests they made. Think about that. In 2016 north korean hackers stole 81 million from the central bank of bangladesh by convincing the fed in new york to obey their fake requests to transfer the money. 81 million. Not bad for a days work, right . North korean hackers it turns out also figured out a way to infect the computers of everyone who visited a relatively obscure banking website. The website of the banking regulator for the nation of poland. Poland is not a financial hub. This is a random and somewhat technical part of the International Banking system. Almost nobodys going to go to the website of the polish banking regulator except of course banks. But that was the point. By basically rigging that real website in poland these north korean hackers were able to get their own malware into the computers of banks from all over the world who had visited that website. And they ended up stealing from and targeting banks through that scheme in brazil and chile and mexico and estonia and venezuela and american banks too, including bank of america. And thats one way to survive crippling International Financial sanctions so you can keep Building Nuclear bombs and keep pouring highend cognac down the throat of your deer leader. If youre cash poor and theres no legal way for you to get cash, you might figure out some other creative ways to get cash. Once upon a time north koreas way around the International Financial restrictions that have been put on them because of their nuclear weapons, once upon a time what they did to get around that was they counterfeited american 100 bills. Not very well. Now they have a new government and military strategy. Thats good. Its dangerous. Its effective. It operates globally. And interestingly, in terms of understanding their power and what theyre capable of, you should know they got very good at that very fast. This International Hacking sorry, international cyberespionage, international cyberwar capacity, they built this up really well really fast. And its remarkable in context because north koreas one of the least wired nations on earth. Theyre one of the least wired nations on earth in terms of electric light. But in terms of Internet Connections there are not very many internet connected computers in north korea. The north Korean People at large do not have access to them. Thats because the north korean government does not want their population at large to be tooling around on the internet and learning stuff. What the north korean government has done instead as a National Security strategy is that they have very tightly controlled their access to the internet and their access to the internet is used specifically as a military and intelligence weapon. They have harnessed all the intellectual firepower that they can within their country into a hacking corps that works under the auspices of the dictatorship. And its been described as sort of a soviet system. They identify kids who seem to have promise in math and technology. They identify them really early, around ages 10 or 11. Once they think theyve got kids who are showing promise, they separate them from their peers. They bundle them into specific schools and training programs. And then they ultimately set them on a course where theyre going to end up hacking for a living. Hacking for the government. Stealing money for and hacking at the direction of the dear leader and the military Intelligence Service that runs that part of their government. Ultimately, where you end up if youre north korean kid and you get funneled into this system that theyve built up within their military over the last few years, they separate you into a specific school. They separate you into specific training programs. They put you in one of two colleges that they have set aside space to work on specifically and ultimately if you get all the way through the system you end up at bureau 121 in the reconnaissance general bureau in north Korean Military intelligence. That is the part of the north korean government that does this. Thats who heads up this whole effort from the dictatorship. And that whole system within the north korean dictatorship was actually built up by the guy who built that agency. The guy who built the reconnaissance general bureau. This military Intelligence Agency in north korea thats done all this stuff, thats in charge of foreign espionage, foreign intelligence and all their cyber stuff, this agency was only founded in 2009 or 2010. Founding director of the agency is a guy named Kim Yong Chol. He founded that the north korean cia, nsa combined. He founded it in 2009 or 2010 and ran it until very recently. He is the senior spy in the north korean government. Hes a highly decorated general. And what he runs is a military operation. And in addition actual cyber stuff that he does he also just sometimes blows things up. In march 2010 there was another one of these joint military exercises between the u. S. And south korea. About 125 kilometers away from the exercises near some disputed islands off the coast of north korea a south Korean Navy Ship got sunk. It was hit with a torpedo. There were 104 men on board. 46 of them were never found. 46 men dead. Officially, the cause of the torpedoing that ship is still in dispute but the u. S. And south korea both believe it was a north korean torpedo. The covert Lethal Action that was masterminded by the head of the reconnaissance general bureau, by Kim Yong Chol. Later that same year north korea launched app artillery barrage at an inhabited south korean island. Civilians were moved into bunkers. But still, four people were killed. 19 people were injured. North korea shot dozens of shells at that island. That attack coming right on the heels, just a few months after north korea apparently torpedoed that south korean ship and killed more than 40 of their sailors. Those two deadly incidents in close proximity brought those two countries very close to the brink of war. They were shooting at each other. That Second Attack where they bombed the island, that was also attributed to Kim Yong Chol, the head of the reconnaissance general bureau, the head of north Korean Military intelligence. So when it comes to power in north korea, we all know about kim jong un and about his dad kim jong il and about his dad kim il sung. This hereditary dictatorship. And dictatorships have a way of focusing attention only on the dear leader at the top. But when it comes to what america knows and what the world knows about north koreas capacity to attack, its capacity to exert force against others, what we know about its attacks on other countries, its attacks on u. S. Companies and banks and all the other people who theyve attacked through their military Intelligence Service, the other person to know about is Kim Yong Chol. The head of north Korean Military intelligence. The guy who has built this massive International Hacking empire. He has been sanctioned multiple times for his role in the north Korean Nuclear program. Hes been sanctioned multiple times for his role in attacks on our allies and on the west. And he did build his countrys military Intelligence Service into an international powerhouse. When he took over, north korea was still trying bad counterfeiting as their big cash idea. They had hacking aspirations but they were pitiful. He founded this reconnaissance general bureau turned it into a sovietstyle Hacking Academy for the nations. He groomed hackers from children. Theyve ended up with a system now that is as good as any in the world. Part of the strategy has been to dispatch North Koreans who are trained in coding and hacking, to dispatch them all over the world. Wherever North Koreans are allowed to work. And that has a couple of advantages. It allows those North Koreans to launch north korean cyberattacks from other geographic locations. Which is helpful in terms of avoiding accountability. But it also lets those north korean de facto spies, it lets them learn about International Innovations in the cyber warfield and it turns out when they compete around the world they are as good as anyone or better. In 2015 at a global hacking competition thats called code chef, 7,600 teams competing from all over the world. At code chef 2015 north korean teams came in first, second, and third place out of more than 7,000 teams competing worldwide. Thats what Kim Yong Chol built. So for people who follow this stuff closely, particularly National Security and in Foreign Policy who have watched north korea not just for its Nuclear Program but have watched north korea in this very short period of time turn into this global cyberwar, cyberespionage powerhouse it was a remarkable and very specific thing when it was announced that north korea would be sending somebody to the u. S. To talk to the Trump Administration. Theyd be sending a highranking official to new york city to have dinner with mike pompeo. And it was announced the guy they would be sending is Kim Yong Chol. The guy you see on the right side of your screen the