Internet service flickers in North Korea

Internet service in North Korea remains intermittent after a massive outage on Monday, with at least two temporary blackouts.

{mosads}The most recent outage happened for about 30 minutes Tuesday morning, hours after a similarly short Web outage in the Asian nation, according to the monitoring firm Dyn Research.

Struggles to maintain the networks follow a 10-hour Internet blackout on Monday, which some have suspected may have been retribution from the U.S. or elsewhere for North Korea’s role in the massive hack at Sony Pictures.  

North Korea has a fragile connection to the Internet, and many Web analysts have said that it would not take a sophisticated cyberattack to disconnect the country from the Internet. 

The State Department on Monday declined to say whether it was behind the outage, but other cyber actors might also be responsible, either in foreign capitals or individuals working together across the globe.

Cyber activist groups such as Anonymous, for instance, have threatened retribution against the nation for the Sony hack and have claimed credit for the recent Internet outage. 

In addition to cyberattacks, a power outage, cable break or other common event could have shut off the country’s access, which is currently dependent on a single Chinese company.