By Kim Yoo-chul
The nation’s top telecom regulator said Wednesday the malfunction of computer networks at broadcasters and banks resulted from a hacking attack, but that it had no evidence suggesting North Korea’s involvement.
The attack directly affected the main servers at TV networks YTN, MBC and KBS, as well as Shinhan, NongHyup and Jeju banks, according to the Korea Communications Commission (KCC).
Workers at the TV stations saw their PCs malfunction. The Financial Services Commission (FSC) issued a statement saying Shinhan’s Internet banking servers went down and that computers at Nonghyup and Jeju banks were hit by a virus that deleted files. The FSC added that Woori Bank successfully fended off a suspected distributed denial-of-service (DDOS)attack.
“We believe distribution of malicious code is the source of the paralysis of PCs at those banks and broadcasters. The network failures were not caused by an outside DDOS attack,’’ Lee Seung-won, an official at the KCC’s network protection bureau, told reporters.
Lee declined to comment on whether North Korea was involved in the hacking, only stressing that the government agency was collecting source codes to find out who was responsible.
LG Uplus, the nation’s smallest mobile carrier, also said its network was hacked on the same day, but it was not done by the same hackers who attacked broadcasters and banks.
In January this year, Seoul blamed Pyongyang for a cyber attack on two Korean news sites, which paralyzed operations at a major newspaper.
“We’ve created a task force team that comprises experts from the KCC, the defense ministry and the intelligence agency to inspect this case,’’ Lee said.
Just after the briefing, KCC released a statement that malicious code which was distributed via patch programs destroyed the systems at banks and TV stations.
The defense minister raised the alert level for the military’s information operations condition, or INFOCON, after the hacking attack against civilian networks was reported.
Last week, North Korea blamed the United States and its allies for launching a cyber attack against it. All of the websites hosted in the country were inaccessible for two days.
This latest incident comes at a time of rising tension on the Korean Peninsula.
Seoul has issued the fourth-highest cyber alert level and has been conducting 24-hour monitoring of the state telecommunications network, according to the KCC. Korea has a five-stage cyber alert system.