Massive and worsening Internet outages that began over the weekend hit North Korea on Monday, often with all online access crippled.

Internet analysis firm Dyn Research said the connection problems worsened to the point that the whole country was affected. North Korea has left the world wide web, the company said, and it is gone until it comes back.

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Although North Korea has broadband Internet connection, access to the Web is restricted to a few. About a million citizens do use mobile phones. The coverage extends to big cities but mobile users could neither place calls to a recipient overseas or take calls from outside.

In the U.S., the State Department and the White House both declined to comment on the source of North Korea's Internet outage.

President Barack Obama announced on Friday his administration will respond to a hacking attack on Sony Pictures Entertainment that he blamed on North Korea. Obama declined to say how the U.S. might respond and it was not clear if Pyongyang's Internet shutdown was Washington's retaliation.

Meanwhile, North Korea has denied hacking into Sony but the government of Kim Jong-un has condemned the "The Interview," a Sony comedy film about a plan to assassinate North Korea's leader. The film was not shown on theaters after a group warned of attacks against theaters that would show the movie.

Internet security firm Arbor Networks said it monitored denial-of-service attacks against North Korea's Internet pipeline beginning Saturday and spilled into Monday. The company explained Internet facilities become overwhelmed when such attacks send so much garbage data. Until the attacks cease or the debilitating traffic can be filtered and discarded, normal connections cannot resume.

Arbor Networks did say it would be easy for hacktivists to scuttle the north's online network, with country's limited connectivity and lack of Internet sophistication, warning it should not be assumed that the U.S. launched the cyber attack.

TagsNorth Korea, Internet outage, sony, Cyberattack, hacking, The Interview