The only problem being that no outside expert with the right skillset would ever travel to North Korea, and them doing so would be highly suspect.

Even if NK wanted to build such a team, the reality of nation-states is that you can't make up for the complete failure of your society with just money alone. The degree to which the Soviet Union turned out to be behind the US during the Cold War speaks to that - and NK is a lot worse off then the Soviet Union.

> The only problem being that no outside expert with the right skillset would ever travel to North Korea, and them doing so would be highly suspect.

Really? Not one person in the entire world? It doesn't even have to be voluntary - North Korea has kidnapped foreign nationals plenty of times in the past, and I find it hard to credit the assertion that there isn't a single skilled hacker in organized crime circles greedy enough to take a generous pay package from NK.

You don't even need them to travel. Have 'em Skype in.

You can build the skillset without having anybody teach you in person.

NK is a lot worse than the Soviet but NK still managed to develop nukes and cobble together a midrange ballistic missile, something no teenage hackers in a basement can manage. You shouldn't underestimate NK. Just the fact they have survived as long as it has shows it means something.

The Copenhagen Suborbitals are a group of "teenage hackers in a basement" who have cobbled together a midrange ballistic missile, although without any intention of using it as a weapon. The main thing preventing other teenage hackers from doing this is violence — either the police come and arrest you, or your neighbors steal your things, or your neighbors get pissed off about the amount of nitrogen oxides you're wafting over their house and coerce you to stop.

True. But the focus is NK is capable of putting up ballistic missiles and naturally they are capable of cobbling some malware tools to hack into sony. Especially into sony.

I don't see why a Chinese hacker wouldn't help NK train their attackers, even if it meant the North Koreans traveling to China. The Western world isn't the only place with elite hackers.

Given China's relationship with NK, why could they not reach out to China for people to do this? Elite hackers from the US probably wouldn't voluntarily go, but NK has way more to lose in their relations with China that the risk would be minimal to whoever goes.

Additionally, there is an estimate (from a facially plausible source) that North Korea has as many as 10,000 people working in IT outsourcing http://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2012/8/153816-inside-the-hermi... (yes, despite the fact that the IT firms don't have full Internet access). It also has to be pointed out that Sony's famously not the hardest target in cyberwarfare.