North Korea hit by major internet outage, likely due to internal cause

7/6/2025 17:45

North Korea's internet was hit by a major outage that lasted several hours on Saturday, knocking off connection to government web sites and official news services online and severing the reclusive country from cyberspace.



It was not clear what caused the outage but it may have been internal rather than a cyberattack, as connections via China and Russia were affected, said researchers who monitor North Korea's internet and technology infrastructure.



North Korea's main official news services, its Foreign Ministry, and the Air Koryo national airline were among websites inaccessible on Saturday, before they started coming back slowly around midday according to checks by Reuters.



North Korea's entire internet infrastructure was not showing up on systems that can monitor internet activities, and email services were also affected, Junade Ali, a U.K.-based researcher who monitors the North Korean internet, said earlier.



"Hard to say if this is intentional or accidental - but seems like this is internal rather than an attack."



Officials at South Korea's cyber terror response centre, a police division that monitors North Korea's cyber activities, could not be reached for comment.