North Korea internet hit by a major outage

North Korea’s internet is experiencing a major outage on Saturday, said a UK-based researcher, adding that the cause may be may be internal rather than a cyberattack.

North Korea’s main news web sites and its Foreign Ministry internet site were inaccessible on Saturday morning, according to checks by Reuters.

“A major outage is currently occurring on North Korea’s internet – affecting all routes whether they come in via China or Russia,” said Junade Ali, a U.K.-based researcher who monitors the North Korean internet.

North Korea’s entire internet infrastructure is not showing up on systems that can monitor internet activities, he said.

“Hard to say if this is intentional or accidental – but seems like this is internal rather than an attack,” he said.

Officials at South Korea’s Police cyber terror response centre which monitors North Korea’s cyber activities could not be reached for comment.