Several security agents affiliated with the Ministry of State Security’s Bureau 10 regularly connected to the Internet without permission, Daily NK has learned.
The agents were busted as a result of a Ministry of State Security internal inspection conducted during the ministry’s first quarter review, a Daily NK reporting partner in North Korea said Wednesday, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Bureau 10 carries out surveillance and oversight of all internal and external electronic communications, and the incident is leading to heavier crackdowns within the ministry, the reporting partner said.
According to Bureau 10’s internal regulations, agents must first fill out a temporary installation and viewing request and receive permission from their manager in charge before they can connect to the Internet.
However, the agents busted during the latest inspection were breaking the regulations by taking advantage of their job and their easy access to the Internet.
All the individuals involved were young mid-ranked and high-ranked security agents who arrived at Bureau 10 late last year after graduating from Ryongsan National Security University.
They had been handling the development of computer programs for the country’s domestic firewall, as well as managing remote access, bugging and security systems.
According to the reporting partner, the ministry investigated the individuals’ unauthorized Internet access and what they searched for and their leaks of outside information before passing on a general report of their findings to Bureau 10’s department heads.
One security agent ran frequent searches for “Kim Jong Un.” Inside the ministry, agents say this act alone — committed by a “security warrior tasked with defending the Greatest Dignity [Kim Jong Un] with his life” — could get him shot.
The reporting partner said it was a fellow agent in the same department who ratted the individuals out. “Bureau 10 departments are given access to the Internet, which had allowed agents to turn off their search word recording devices and search the web as much as they like without issue. But after a new bureau chief took over, even these previously routine issues have turned into major incidents,” he said, relaying an opinion held by those within the ministry.
The incident has caused alarm within the leadership of the Ministry of State Security, which has moved swiftly to deal with wayward agents.
The reporting partner said that the ministry condemned electronic surveillance agents who abused their Internet access privileges, saying such agents “were not qualified to be security warriors.”
He further noted that all the agents implicated in the recent inspection will be dishonorably discharged from service at the ministry.
The Ministry of State Security informed Bureau 10’s electronic surveillance bases in regions along the China-North Korea border of the incident in detail, urging them to prevent similar cases from occurring, the reporting partner added.
Translated by David Black. Edited by Robert Lauler.
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