North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un's hairstyle. (Photo: Reuters)
North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un. (Photo: Reuters)

The state-run Internet in North Korea crashed on Monday for a good nine-and-a-half hours following a day-long instability, suggesting a possible 'external attack' and triggering intense speculations over the origins of the outage. 

If the outage was indeed caused by an external attack, it will be ironic for North Korea, which is in the centre of a storm over the Sony hack.

The total Internet outage that came after an up-and-down connectivity is said to be similar to when a network is under 'external attack', Dyn Research, which monitors Internet networks across the world said on its website.

In a post titled "Someone Disconnects North Korea – Who?", Dyn Research also suggested that the outage could have resulted from power problems.

The network was restored after 9 hours and 31 minutes, but the causes are yet not clear.

"I haven't seen such a steady beat of routing instability and outages in KP before," Doug Madory, director of Internet analysis at Dyn Research, told North Korea Tech.

"Usually there are isolated blips, not continuous connectivity problems. I wouldn't be surprised if they are absorbing some sort of attack presently."

Theories are being circulated about the possible role of the United States behind the North Korea Internet crash. According to Anti-Media, an 'independent journalism' website, the US is definitely behind the Internet crash in the communist nation. It also said that America is planning more such cyber attacks against North Korea, especially on its banking system. In fact, US President Barack Obama had earlier warned that the US would launch a 'proportional response' against North Korea's 'cybervandalism' after it accused the North Korean government of being involved in the cyber attack on Sony Pictures.

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