By Chung Min-uck

The website of the National Election Commission (NEC), the nation’s election watchdog, came under attack a day before Wednesday’s National Assembly elections.

It said in a statement that the website and one of its sections that provides ballot station information were hacked on Tuesday from 10:27 to 11:01 p.m. and 11:02 to 11:20 p.m.

Information services on the website were disrupted for around three minutes due to the cyber attack but the NEC soon managed to normalize them.

The NEC said it has requested a police investigation into the denial-of-service (DDoS) attack.

The National Police Agency’s Cyber Terror Response Center Wednesday said it has sent police forces to the NEC’s information center to find out who conducted the attack.

Attacks on the NEC’s website are nothing new.

On the day of the Seoul mayoral by-election in October, a large-scale DDoS attack paralyzed the NEC’s website for two hours.

Prosecutors concluded that former secretary of Rep. Choi Gu-sik, a ruling Saenuri Party lawmaker, masterminded the attack.