South Korea lowers cyberattack alert
SEOUL, South Korea — South Korea’s spy agency lowered the country’s cyberattack alert Monday as affected Web sites returned to normal after suffering outages in a series of assaults that have cast suspicion on North Korea.
Dozens of South Korean and U.S. Web sites, including those of the White House and South Korea’s presidential Blue House, were targeted in the so-called denial of service attacks, in which floods of computers try to connect to a single site at the same time to overwhelm the server.
But there have been no new Web attacks since the last wave launched Thursday evening. South Korea’s National Intelligence Service said in a statement that it lowered the alert level because the attacks are fizzling out, but added it will keep a close watch for any signs of fresh assaults.
North Korea is suspected of involvement. The spy agency told lawmakers last week that a North Korean military research institute had been ordered to destroy the South’s communications networks, local media reported.
The agency said in a statement Saturday that it has “various evidence” of North Korean involvement, but cautioned it has yet to reach a final conclusion.
South Korean media reported in May that North Korea was running an Internet warfare unit that tries to hack into U.S. and South Korean military networks to gather confidential information and disrupt service.
The Chosun Ilbo newspaper reported Friday that the North has between 500 and 1,000 hacking specialists. Yonhap news agency also reported Sunday that the North has stolen personal information of at least 1.65 million South Koreans since 2004.
On Monday, Kim Hong-sun, head of South Korea’s top antivirus software developer, AhnLab, said the hackers must have “intimate knowledge of South Korea’s equipment, software, and network environment,” but he declined to speculate on who might have been responsible.
South Korean police are also analyzing a sample of the tens of thousands of infected computers.
An Chan-soo, a senior police officer investigating the cyberattacks, said Sunday that investigators had obtained 27 computers infected with malicious computer code, known as malware, in an attempt to trace the “contamination paths” of the programs that launched the attacks.
Such programs can give hackers remote access to computers without the owners’ knowledge.
An gave no details about who the computers belonged to, other than that they were from South Korean individuals. He said South Korea is also seeking to obtain hard disks and other information on six foreign servers whose files update malware programs.
An did not say where the foreign servers were located.
The state-run Korea Communications Commission has said tens of thousands of computers were infected. The commission says it has identified and blocked five Internet Protocol, or IP, addresses in five countries used to distribute computer viruses that caused the wave of Web site outages, which began in the U.S. on July 4.
They were in Austria, Georgia, Germany, South Korea and the U.S., a commission official said. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the media on the record.
The identity of the IP addresses themselves, however, does not clarify much. It is likely the hackers used the addresses to disguise themselves — for instance, by accessing the computers from a remote location. IP addresses can also be faked or masked, hiding their true location.
Associated Press writers Kwang-tae Kim and Wanjin Park in Seoul contributed to this report.
Related News
North Korea demands South Korea return 11 defectors, but Seoul says it won'tOctober 4th, 2009 North Korea demands SKorea return 11 defectorsSEOUL, South Korea — South Korea's Unification Ministry says North Korea has demanded Seoul return 11 people who defected to the South by sea last week. The ministry says in a statement that the North sent its demand in a message Sunday.
North Korea demands South Korea repatriate 11 defectors, Seoul declinesOctober 4th, 2009 SKorea refuses North's demand to return defectorsSEOUL, South Korea — North Korea has demanded South Korea repatriate a group of 11 North Koreans who defected by sea last week, but the South does not intend to return them, the Unification Ministry said Sunday. The 11 crossed into southern waters off the divided peninsula's east coast aboard a small barge early Thursday evening.
NKorea puts military on "special alert" because of joint SKorean-US military drillsAugust 17th, 2009 NKorea puts military on 'special alert'SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea says its military will be on "special alert" because of South Korea's joint military drills with the U.S. The communist nation's army made the announcement Monday on the same day that the country said it was restarting key reconciliation projects with South Korea, to reunite separated families and organize joint tourism.
North Korea puts troops on alert over South Korea-US war gamesAugust 17th, 2009 SEOUL - North Korea Monday put its troops on alert as an annual joint South Korean-US war game commenced and accused its neighbour of planning an attack. North Korea would react to any provocation with a "merciless and prompt annihilating strike at the aggressors with all offensive and defensive means, including nuclear deterrent", state media quoted the high command of the Korean People's Army as saying.
South Korea to import Russian gasJuly 31st, 2009 SEOUL - South Korea will import Russian gas as part of a $100-billion pact signed by the two countries in September last year, WAM news agency reported Friday. South Korean Economy Minister Lee Yoon-ho will visit Russia in August to discuss the matter in detail, the report said.
SKorean police: Hackers extracted data from virus-contaminated computers in cyberattacksJuly 14th, 2009 SKorean police: Hackers extracted data in attacksSEOUL, South Korea — Hackers extracted lists of files from computers that they contaminated with the virus that triggered cyberattacks last week in the United States and South Korea, police in Seoul said Tuesday. The attacks, in which floods of computers tried to connect to a single Web site at the same time to overwhelm the server, caused outages on prominent government-run sites in both countries.
South Korea lowers cyberattack alert after suffering outages in a series of assaultsJuly 13th, 2009 South Korea's spy agency lowers cyberattack alertSEOUL, South Korea — South Korea's spy agency lowered the country's cyberattack alert Monday as affected Web sites returned to normal after suffering outages in a series of assaults that have cast suspicion on North Korea. Dozens of South Korean and U.S.
US, South Korea raise surveillance level over North KoreaMay 28th, 2009 SEOUL - South Korea and the US Thursday ramped up their surveillance over North Korea, as Pyongyang nullified its truce with Seoul and threatened war. The armed forces of both countries upped surveillance to the penultimate level of a five-state surveillance scale for the first time since North Korea's first nuclear test in October 2006, the South Korean Yonhap news agency reported, quoting a defence ministry official.
North Korea threatens military strike against South KoreaMay 27th, 2009 SEOUL - North Korea Wednesday warned it will respond militarily to South Korea joining a US-led initiative to intercept ships carrying illicit weapons, the South Korean Yonhap news agency said.
South Korean delegation in North Korea for talksApril 21st, 2009 SEOUL - A South Korean delegation reached North Korea Tuesday morning to participate in talks amid mounting tensions in the Korean Peninsula. 'The delegation has crossed the border,' a spokesman of South Korea's Unification Ministry said.
South Korea agrees for talks with North KoreaApril 19th, 2009 SEOUL - The South Korean government Sunday said that it has decided to accept Pyongyang's offer for holding inter-Korean talks next week. It will be the first governmental talks between South Korea and North Korea since South Korean President Lee Myung-bak took office in February last year.
North Korea places troops on combat alertMarch 9th, 2009 SEOUL - North Korean troops have gone on combat alert in response to annual US-South Korean manoeuvres, the country's official news agency reported. The North Korean Army's Supreme Command vowed massive retaliation against the US and South Korean forces if Pyongyang's land, sea or air spaces are violated during the military exercises.
North Korea threatens to shoot down South Korean planesMarch 6th, 2009 SEOUL - North Korea Thursday indirectly threatened to shoot down South Korean passenger aircraft in its airspace, amid growing tension on the Korean peninsula. North Korea's Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea made the threat as the US and South Korea prepared to undertake joint military exercises next Monday.
North Korea says ready for 'all-out confrontation' with SouthFebruary 18th, 2009 PYONGYANG - North Korea Thursday said its army was ready for an 'an all-out confrontation' with South Korea, the official KCNA news agency reported. The Lee Myung-bak administration of South Korea, which is trying to find a way-out of its serious inner crisis through escalating confrontation with North Korea, will meet 'the merciless and stern punishment by the army and people of North Korea,' a military spokesman for Korean People's Army (KPA) said.
North Korea scraps all accords with South KoreaJanuary 29th, 2009 PYONGYANG - North Korea has scrapped all political and military agreements with South Korea, the official KCNA news agency reported Friday. It denounced the South Korean government for pushing the inter-Korean relations to the brink of a war.
Loading ...