SEOUL -- Some major North Korean websites remained blocked Wednesday for the second straight day amid growing speculation over cyber warfare between Washington and Pyongyang.Since going down Monday evening, the website of the North's main propaganda organ, Uriminzokkiri, remained inaccessible as of early Wednesday. The access to other well-known North Korean propaganda websites, including Ryugyong and Ryomyong, was also blocked as of Wednesday morning.
The Internet outage comes as speculation continued over who is responsible for the blockage.
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Internet performance analyst Dyn Research reported that the North Korean Internet had been down for one hour since 00:41 a.m. (Korean time).
According to speculation, the U.S. may be behind the latest outage as it came just two days after U.S. President Barack Obama vowed to "respond proportionally" against the North's alleged hacking of Sony Pictures.
The North had warned of retaliation against Sony's plan to release the film "The Interview," based on the plot of an assassination attempt on North Korean leader Kim Jung-un.
Speaking of the North Korean Internet problem, the U.S. government has neither confirmed nor denied its role in the outage.