Remember Iridium
I wonder if that's connected. The Elites use Iridium to connect to the "closed" network of NK so they can share intel without being spied on or mass collected (or so they thought?) . Just wild speculation.
Also did they use personal email and knowingly give passwords to bad foreign actors to access information? And if caught, they would just say they were "hacked" by Russia or whomever? Takes out the step of sending it themselves and being collected. Spitballing things I've thought for a while.