The key facts

  • The mass outage of North Korean websites began simultaneously on Tuesday; KCNA came back online but was inaccessible for 19 of 24 hours.
  • The cause of the outage is unclear; NK News links it to the Ryugyong network, which uses China Unicom and addresses of Hong Kong's Cenbong.
  • Alternative routes via TransTeleCom (since 2017) and the Philippine network (since 2023) did not restore connectivity.

Mass outage of North Korean websites

Almost all North Korean websites have been inaccessible from abroad for more than 24 hours, the Seoul-based outlet NK News reported on Wednesday. External access to North Korean state media and official portals is unavailable. The cause of the nationwide outage remains unclear.

Which resources went offline

Several websites began experiencing sustained outages simultaneously on Tuesday: the state agency KCNA, the newspapers Rodong Sinmun and Minju Joson, and the external broadcasting service Voice of Korea. Also inaccessible are the official information portal Naenara, the website of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the national airline Air Koryo, and DPRK Portal — a catalog of official North Korean websites.

Brief returns online

KCNA came back online later on Tuesday but was inaccessible for 19 of the 24 hours after the outage began. The other sites mostly remained offline, except for short periods of connectivity on Wednesday morning totaling about 10 minutes. The SMTP mail server of Pyongyang's Silibank has also been down since Tuesday, apart from a five-minute period of availability on Wednesday morning.

Possible cause and alternative channels

According to NK News, the outages are likely linked to problems in the Ryugyong network, which has historically relied on internet service from the Chinese provider China Unicom via IP addresses associated with the Hong Kong network Cenbong. Since 2017, the alternative provider has been Russia's TransTeleCom, and since 2023 Chinese and Russian traffic has been routed through an additional Philippine network. Despite these alternative routes, connectivity remains paralyzed for more than a day.