North Korea blamed for cyber attacks

SOUTH Korean intelligence officials believe North Korea or pro-Pyongyang forces committed cyber attacks that paralysed major South Korean and US government websites, aides to two lawmakers said yesterday.

The sites of 11 South Korean organisations, including the presidential Blue House and the defence ministry, went down or had access problems since late on Tuesday, according to the state-run Korea Information Security Agency.

Agency spokeswoman Ahn Jeong-eun said 11 US sites suffered similar problems. She said the agency is investigating the case with police and prosecutors.

In the US, the Treasury Department, Secret Service, Federal Trade Commission and Transportation Department websites were all down at varying points over the July 4 holiday weekend and into this week, according to American officials inside and outside the government.

Others familiar with the US outage, which is called a denial of service attack, said that the fact that the government websites were still being affected three days after it began signalled an unusually lengthy and sophisticated attack.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to speak on the matter.

The Korea Information Security Agency also attributed the attacks to denial of service.

Yang Moo-jin, a professor at Seoul’s University of North Korean Studies, said he doubts whether the impoverished North has the capability to knock down the websites.

But Hong Hyun-ik, an analyst at the Sejong Institute think tank, said the attack could have been done by either North Korea or China, saying he “heard North Korea has been working hard to hack into” South Korean networks.

Yesterday, the National Intelligence Service told a group of South Korean lawmakers it believes that North Korea or North Korean sympathisers “were behind” the attacks, according to an aide to one of the lawmakers who was briefed on the information.

An aide to another lawmaker who was briefed also said the NIS suspects North Korea or its followers were responsible.

The aides spoke on condition of anonymity and refused to allow the names of the lawmakers they work for to be published, citing the classified nature of the information.

Both aides said the information was delivered in writing to lawmakers who serve on the National Assembly’s intelligence committee.

The National Intelligence Service — South Korea’s main spy agency — declined to confirm the information.

South Korea’s Yonhap news agency said military intelligence officers were looking at the possibility that the attack may have been committed by North Korean hackers and pro-North Korea forces in South Korea. South Korea’s Defence Ministry said it could not confirm the report.

Earlier yesterday, the National Intelligence Service said in a statement that 12,000 computers in South Korea and 8,000 computers overseas had been infected and used for the cyber attack.

The agency said it believed the attack was “thoroughly” prepared and committed by hackers “at the level of a certain organisation or state”.

It said it was co-operating with the American investigators to examine the case.