South Korea Trains Student Hackers to Fight Kim's Cyber Elite
- Scholarships given in return for 7 years of military service
- South Korean cyber warriors playing catch up with North
A student looks at text reading 'ISIS' displayed on a computer monitor during a cyber-defense programming class in the 'War Room' at Korea University.
Photographer: SeongJoon Cho/BloombergIn a darkened “war room” dozens of South Korea’s brightest college students are practicing hacking each other as part of a government program to train them to battle some of the world’s best -- the shadowy techno-soldiers of Kim Jong Un’s regime.
To build its defenses, President Park Geun Hye’s government has enlisted 120 of the country’s most-talented young programmers, offering full scholarships in return for seven years of military service. While the hackers of the Kim regime may be best known for their link to last year’s attack on Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc., their primary target remains South Korea, with the two countries technically still at war more than 60 years after the conflict that sealed their division.