NorthKorea Back Online After Widespread Internet Outage

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un looks at a computer, surrounded by army

Prominent North Korean websites were back online Tuesday after an hours-long shutdown that led to speculation by some researchers and web watchers that the country's Internet connections could be under cyberattack.

South Korean officials told the Associated Press that Internet access to the North's official Korean Central News Agency and the Rodong Sinmun newspaper were working normally Tuesday after being inaccessible earlier.

 Those sites are the main channels for official North Korea news, with servers located abroad.

The outage came less than a week after the U.S. vowed an unspecified response to a massive hacking attack against Sony Pictures Entertainment over the release of the comedy film "The Interview." The plot of the comedy centers on the assassination of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, leading to widespread speculation that the country was responsible for the attack. Late last week, the FBI publicly blamed North Korea in the incident, though Pyongyang has denied involvement.

The White House and the State Department on Monday declined to say whether the U.S. government had any role in North Korea's Internet problems.

"We have no new information to share regarding North Korea today," White House National Security Council spokesperson Bernadette Meehan told Fox News. "If in fact North Korea’s Internet has gone down, we’d refer you to that government for comment."

North Korean diplomat Kim Song, asked Monday about the Internet attack, told The Associated Press: "I have no information."

Fox News