Someone may have hacked the North Korean UN mission’s voicemail

Ryan Murphy/Getty Images

For the past 29 years, one of the few ways to get in touch with the North Korean government has been a phone number printed in the United Nations member directory .

It’s the line to North Korea’s permanent mission to the UN — their only diplomatic outpost on American soil — an office on the 13th floor of a midtown Manhattan skyscraper.

However, sometime within the past three years, an unknown person apparently hacked the mission’s voicemail, rerecording the greeting message as a satirical monologue about mass starvation and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

CNN discovered the voicemail in late September while attempting to contact the mission. Callers who dial its number and stay on for the voicemail greeting now hear a high-pitched voice speaking in a racist caricature of an East Asian accent. The speaker jokes about North Korea’s chronic food shortages and encourages anyone wishing to contact Kim Jong Un to leave a message, saying that if they do, perhaps “someone (will) get fed sometime soon.”

Then an automated voice chimes in, informing the caller that the mailbox is full.

Isolated North Korea has in the past faced huge food shortages driven by economic mismanagement and exacerbated by official clampdowns on border trade, as well as the diversion of scarce resources to military projects, according to experts.

Never-before-seen video shows a different side of North Korea

The North Korean mission did not answer an email inquiring about its voicemail greeting being changed.

When a CNN producer went to their office in New York and knocked on the door to ask in person, a male staffer emerged. The staffer refused to answer questions but listened, with a surprised expression, as the producer called the mission’s number and played the voicemail greeting in its entirety.

“This is not our number,” the staffer said and slammed the door shut.

Days later, after North Korea’s vice foreign minister addressed the UN General Assembly, the mission published the phone number in question on the first page of the minister’s speech. As of writing, the greeting remains unchanged.

A spokesperson for the UN Media and Liaison Unit (MALU) told CNN that the number connected to the voicemail was the only one they had, and that they were unaware of any change to the mission’s voicemail greeting. The UN’s Protocol and Liaison Service, which publishes the directory, referred CNN back to MALU.

It’s unclear who pulled the prank, though there are a few public hints as to when it may have changed and how. David Maxwell, vice president at the Center for Asia Pacific Strategy, told CNN that he called the mission while attending a protest outside in November 2023. Maxwell recalled that the voicemail greeting at the time was just a recording informing the caller that the number did not take messages.

Experts told CNN that finding out who changed the voicemail is impossible without access to the private call logs for the North Korean mission, but a stranger may have been able to re-record the mission’s greeting message without much effort.

Barcelona-based cybersecurity researcher Martin Vigo told CNN that many users often fail to change their voicemail passwords from the default code issued by the carrier, which in some cases may be the last four digits of their phone number.

Guessing passcodes is also rather easy, especially with automated calling services that can rapidly guess and input thousands of combinations for four-digit PINs.

“For 40 bucks, I can 100% access your voicemail if you have a four-digit pin,” said Vigo. “It’s very cheap, and very fast.”

The mission’s phone line once served as a key circuit for diplomacy. North Korea and the US have no formal ties, so the country’s UN mission long acted as “the New York channel”: one of the only points of contact between the US government and Pyongyang.

Joel S. Wit, a former State Department official and author of a book on US attempts to disarm North Korea, said that the mission was an important part of negotiations over North Korea’s nuclear program in 1994.

The mission has a permanent staff of 23 diplomats and aides, according to the UN’s directory. Wit remembers the mission’s office space as sparsely furnished with “the required picture of their leaders” hanging on the wall. All the mission staff live nearby, as the State Department requires North Korea’s diplomats to obtain permission before traveling more than 25 miles from New York City.

“Back in the Clinton years, we were actually doing negotiations with the North Korean mission,” said Wit. “This was a very serious relationship.”

But times have changed. Wit said that as succeeding attempts to defuse North Korea’s nuclear program have failed — including landmark talks in 2019 between Kim Jong Un and US President Donald Trump – Pyongyang and the US have lost what few diplomatic ties they had. Instead, North Korea has cultivated relations closer to home, especially with Russia, which has gladly accepted thousands of North Korean soldiers for the front lines of its war in Ukraine.

“Ukraine is a prime example of the shift in relations,” Wit said. “The North Koreans think geopolitically. They’re not ideological robots. Their geopolitics drives their foreign policy.”

“I’m sure that the New York channel today is pretty much non-functioning,” Wit continued. “Whoever hacked (the voicemail) probably didn’t know, but it’s a function of the relationship between the United States and North Korea. Today, the relationship doesn’t matter to the North Koreans.”

EDITOR’S NOTE: If you know how the North Korean mission’s voicemail may have changed, please send a tip on Signal to @maxsaltman.37

Ryan Murphy/Getty Images

在过去的 29 年里，与朝鲜政府取得联系的少数途径之一就是通过联合国成员国名录上印制的电话号码。

这是朝鲜常驻联合国代表团的电话线——朝鲜在美国领土上的唯一外交前哨——办公室位于曼哈顿中城一座摩天大楼的 13 层。

然而，在过去三年中的某个时候，一名身份不明的人显然入侵了该使团的语音信箱，将问候信息重新录制成一段关于大规模饥荒和朝鲜领导人金正恩的讽刺独白。

CNN在9月下旬试图联系朝鲜驻美使团时发现了这条语音留言。现在，拨打该号码并继续等待语音留言的人会听到一个尖细的声音，用带有种族歧视色彩的东亚口音说话。说话者拿朝鲜长期粮食短缺开玩笑，并鼓励任何想联系金正恩的人留言，说如果他们留言，也许“有人很快就能吃饱饭了”。

然后，自动语音提示来电者邮箱已满。

专家表示，与世隔绝的朝鲜过去曾面临严重的粮食短缺，这是由于经济管理不善造成的，并因官方对边境贸易的打压以及将稀缺资源转移到军事项目而加剧。

一段前所未见的视频展现了朝鲜的另一面

朝鲜方面没有回复关于其语音信箱问候语更改的询问邮件。

当一位CNN制片人前往他们在纽约的办公室敲门询问时，一名男性工作人员走了出来。这名工作人员拒绝回答问题，但带着惊讶的表情听着制片人拨打使团电话，并完整播放了语音信箱的问候语。

“这不是我们的号码，”工作人员说完，砰地一声关上了门。

几天后，在朝鲜副外相于联合国大会发表讲话后，联合国代表团在副外相的讲话稿首页公布了该电话号码。截至发稿时，问候语仍未更改。

联合国媒体联络处（MALU）发言人告诉CNN，该语音信箱的号码是他们唯一的号码，他们并不知晓特派团语音信箱问候语有任何更改。负责发布该名录的联合国礼宾联络处则建议CNN联系MALU。

目前尚不清楚是谁恶作剧，不过有一些公开线索暗示了恶作剧可能发生的时间和方式。亚太战略中心副总裁大卫·麦克斯韦告诉CNN，2023年11月，他在参加一场户外抗议活动时拨打了该使馆的电话。麦克斯韦回忆说，当时的语音信箱留言只是一段录音，告知来电者该号码不接受留言。

专家告诉 CNN，如果没有朝鲜使团的私人通话记录，就不可能查明是谁更改了语音信箱，但陌生人可能毫不费力地就能重新录制使团的问候信息。

巴塞罗那网络安全研究员马丁·维戈告诉 CNN，许多用户经常没有将语音信箱密码从运营商提供的默认密码更改为其他密码，而该默认密码在某些情况下可能是他们电话号码的后四位数字。

猜测密码也相当容易，尤其是有自动呼叫服务可以快速猜测并输入数千种四位数密码组合。

“只要40美元，如果你有四位数的密码，我就能百分之百访问你的语音信箱，”维戈说。“价格很便宜，速度也很快。”

该代表团的电话线路曾是重要的外交渠道。朝鲜和美国没有正式外交关系，因此朝鲜常驻联合国代表团长期以来充当着“纽约渠道”的角色：是美国政府和平壤之间为数不多的联系点之一。

前国务院官员、著有关于美国试图解除朝鲜武装的书籍的乔尔·S·维特表示，这次任务是 1994 年朝鲜核计划谈判的重要组成部分。

根据联合国名录，该使团常驻人员包括23名外交官和助手。维特回忆说，使团办公室陈设简陋，墙上挂着“他们领导人的指定照片”。所有使团工作人员都住在附近，因为美国国务院要求朝鲜外交官在离开纽约市25英里以外的地方出行前必须获得许可。

“早在克林顿执政时期，我们就曾与朝鲜代表团进行过谈判，”维特说。“这曾是非常严肃的关系。”

但时代已经改变。维特表示，随着旨在化解朝鲜核计划的一系列尝试均告失败——包括2019年金正恩与美国总统唐纳德·特朗普举行的具有里程碑意义的会谈——平壤和美国仅存的少量外交关系也已丧失殆尽。取而代之的是，朝鲜转而发展与周边国家的关系，尤其是与俄罗斯的关系。俄罗斯欣然接受了数千名朝鲜士兵，前往乌克兰前线作战。

“乌克兰是这种关系转变的一个典型例子，”维特说。“朝鲜人是从地缘政治角度思考问题的。他们不是意识形态的傀儡。他们的外交政策是由地缘政治驱动的。”

“我确信纽约频道今天基本上已经瘫痪了，”维特继续说道。“入侵（语音信箱）的人可能并不知情，但这反映了美朝关系。如今，美朝关系对朝鲜人来说已经无关紧要了。”

编者按：如果您知道朝鲜使团的语音信箱可能发生了哪些变化，请通过 Signal 向 @maxsaltman.37 发送线索。