North Korea Suspected in Cyber Attacks

2009-07-20

South Korean intelligence officials believe that a recent cyber attack that targeted U.S. websites and South Korean organizations was carried out by North Korea or pro-Pyongyang groups.

Seoul's National Intelligence Service (NIS) stated, "This is not a simple attack by individuals. The attack appeared to have been elaborately prepared and staged by a certain organization or state."

The attacks started on July 4, Independence Day, and attacked US government agencies, including the Treasury Department and Secret Service, and also hit South Korea's presidential office, parliament and defense and foreign ministries.

Shin Hwa-su, Korean Information Agency official, said that an initial investigation in South Korea found that many personal computers were infected with a virus program ordering them to visit major official websites in South Korea and the U.S. at the same time. There has been no immediate reports of similiar cyber attacks in other Asian countries."

Philip Reitinger, Homeland Security Department, said the attacks demonstrate the importance of cybersecurity as a critical national security issue.

South Korea's NIS discovered that 12,000 computers in South Korea and 8,000 computers overseas had been infected and used for the cyber attack.

While its believed that North Korea is behind the attack, a National Intelligence Service official in South Korea said the initial probe had not yet uncovered evidence about where the cyber outages originated and that there were no immediate reports of financial damage or leaking of confidential information. The attack may have just been aimed at disrupting websites but the case is still under investigation.

Some worry about the security on sites that were affected by the attacks, including the U.S. State Department site and "The Washington Post" which went offline for periods of time. Amy Kudwa, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security, stated "We see attacks on federal networks every single day, and measures in place have minimized the impact to federal websites."

Others, including James Lewis of the Center for Strategic and International Studies feel that this is a warning sign, stating "We can't expect to have this uneven, catch-as-catch-can defense and not suffer something more consequential if a more sophisticated opponent were to attack us."

Former Homeland Security Official, Stewart Baker, stated "While I was at the department we discovered a flaw in the software of generators that are used for large power plants that actually could cause the generator to tear itself to pieces." Adding, "I think if you talk to private industry or officials responsible for protecting our networks, they would all say they feel less secure now than they did five years ago."

More on the recent cyber attack can be found here.