By Cho Jin-seo
Staff Reporter
Hackers broke into the computer network of the presidential office in February and stole classified documents from the National Security Council (NSC), officials said Tuesday.
Cheong Wa Dae was not aware of the information leak until the National Intelligence Service informed it in March, the Hankook Ilbo reported. The presidential office confirmed the report, and said it is now revamping the network security system to prevent such incidents from recurring.
It said that the incident won't seriously affect national security since only one PC was infected by a ``worm,'' while a firewall system protected the main computer server from the attack. The origin of the attack was not disclosed, but officials said the hackers apparently used an overseas computer server.
They are believed to have planted a computer worm, which duplicated itself via a computer network, by sending an infected e-mail to a Blue House staff member, the president office said.
``The leaked documents are internal reports and job manuals which belong to the NSC. They are not top secret and will not affect national security,'' a Cheong Wa Dae secretary said.
``Our investigation showed that an NSC staff worker's negligence let a worm obtain some documents. The worker will be reprimanded, and we have already set up measures to improve our network security system.''
The official also said that the incident took place during the former President Roh Moo-hyun administration and therefore the current President Lee Myung-bak and his staff do not bear any responsibility for the case.
This is not the only hacking case targeting the presidential office recently. According to the Hankook Ilbo, hackers tried to paralyze its network system again last Saturday by sending massive amounts of data traffic at the same time ― a technique known as a DoS (denial of service) attack. This time it was blocked by the firewall system, and the Blue House instructed the intelligence service to investigate the incident.
indizio@koreatimes.co.kr