S. Korea Prosecutors Say N. Korean Hackers Shut Bank Network
North Korea was responsible for paralyzing the National Agricultural Cooperative Federation’s computer network in April in a second online attack in two months linked to the Kim Jong Il regime, South Korean prosecutors said.
Hackers used similar techniques employed in cyber assaults that targeted websites in South Korea and the U.S. earlier this year and in 2009, the Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office said in an e-mailed statement today. The Unification Ministry criticized the “provocation” and urged North Korea to stop such attacks immediately.
The network of the bank better known in Korean as Nonghyup was shut down on April 12, keeping its almost 20 million clients from using automated teller machines and online banking services. In all of the three bouts of online attacks, a method called “distributed denial service” was used, according to the statement.
Under the DDoS tactic, malicious codes infect computers to trigger mass attacks against targeted websites, according to Ahnlab Inc. (053800), South Korea’s largest maker of antivirus software.
Nonghyup will spend 510 billion won ($477.2 million) by 2015 to boost network security, the bank said in an e-mailed statement. The company received 1,385 claims for compensation related to the network disruption as of May 2, and 1,361 of them have been settled, according to the statement.
North Korea’s postal ministry was responsible for the 2009 attacks, Won Sei Hoon, head of South Korea’s National Intelligence Service, told lawmakers in October that year.
Attacks in March this year targeted 40 South Korean websites, including at the presidential office, the National Intelligence Service, and Ministry of National Defense. They were traced to the same Internet Protocol addresses used in the 2009 episodes, South Korean police said last month.
The hackers prepared for the April 12 attack on Nonghyup for more than seven months, the Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office said today.
To contact the reporters on this story: Jun Yang in Seoul at jyang180@bloomberg.net; Bomi Lim in Seoul at blim30@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Young-Sam Cho at ycho2@bloomberg.net
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