North Korea Hacks British Drama Series

UK TV show about North Korea hit by cyber-attack.

A retaliation hacking appears to have taken place, pitting North Korean operatives against the production company behind a British drama series set within the Asian country. Following an announcement that Channel 4 was producing a new high-stakes series about a nuclear scientist who’s being held captive in North Korea, officials from Pyongyang issued a stern warning. The barely veiled threat was that following through with production of the program would equate to an attack on the already tenuous relations between the two countries.

“Opposite Number,” as the show was slated to be called, was announced about four years ago, and not so much as a pilot episode has aired. Now it’s come to light that Channel 4 was hacked by North Korea after the show was announced, leading the network to shelve the project.

Pyongyang described the plot as a “slanderous farce” as it called on the British government to pull the series in order to avoid damaging relations.

Got form

It’s easy to blame Channel 4 for their part in this. After all, you don’t go poke the bear unless you’re certain your own protective tools are strong enough to handle the resulting attack. But it’s also another example of North Korean hit-or-miss cyber capabilities. Sometimes their efforts fail, such as when attempting to hack the Federal Reserve but spelling a critical word wrong, and other times their efforts work just fine, such as when Sony Pictures was hacked to prevent the release The Interview, of a slapstick comedy about an assassination attempt of the country’s dictator.

TV critics

While it’s somewhat understandable that North Korea would take issue with a film such as The Interview, their complaint with “Opposite Number” is simply the implication that they would even need to imprison a British scientist in order to force him to help them develop nuclear weapons. In response to the announcement of the show’s plot, the government’s official statement called the plot a “farce,” and claimed that North Korea already had “unimaginably powerful nuclear weaponry.”

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