North Korea elite use Gmail, Facebook and iTunes

A report by the threat intelligence company, Recorded Future, is attracting considerable attention in the mainstream media today, and appropriately so.  (Read The Washington Post story here).  Recorded Future is a startup company founded in 2009 with offices in Massachusetts, Virginia, Sweden and the UK.  It delivers threat intelligence powered by machine learning.  The company's patented technology automatically collects and analyzes intelligence from technical, open, and dark web sources. (click on graphic to see a full size version).
In June and July of this year, Recorded Future published a two-part study of cyber and internet usage patterns in North Korea.  The first report, entitled "North Korea is Not Crazy,"  examines North Korean cyber activity in the context of that nation's military strategy, national goals and security perceptions.  The second report, entitled "North Korea's Ruling Elite are not Isolated," explores the internet activity of the country's ruling elite.  The study is based on analysis of activity traceable to IP addresses that are known or suspected to be used mainly by North Korea's elites.  Such analysis makes it difficult to completely eliminate the possibility that internet usage by foreign diplomats or journalists might be included in the results.  Nevertheless, the findings are persuasive and represent the first such public study based on empirical data.