By Jun Ji-hye
Some of the 386 defense firms that participated in an international defense exhibition held at Seoul Airport last month were hacked, according to the Ministry of National Defense, Thursday.
Ministry spokesman Kim Min-seok told a regular briefing, “The Defense Security Command (DSC) is carrying out an investigation into the suspected hacking.”
The ministry said hackers sent emails containing malignant codes last week to a total of 386 domestic and foreign defense firms that took part in the event.
Officials of some of the companies opened the email without due caution because the exhibition had only recently finished, only to find that their computers were then infected by malicious codes.
The title of the email was “10 masterpiece weapons displayed at the Seoul air show,” and the sender was falsely stated as the headquarters of the Seoul International Aerospace and Defense Exhibition 2015 (Seoul ADEX).
The sender’s address was “seouladex@daum.net.”
The Seoul ADEX ran for six days from Oct. 20 at Seoul Airport in Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province. The biennial event, which began in 1996, included indoor exhibits, demonstration flights and an outdoor exhibition of aircraft and ground equipment.
Korean defense firm LIG Nex1 was among those whose computers were infected by the codes. The company has been working on the development of an active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar, which is considered critical to the nation’s KF-X project, aimed at developing indigenous fighter jets by 2025.
ADEX headquarters sent an official notice to 386 companies, Monday, saying “Never open emails that pretend to have been sent by our headquarters because they contain malicious codes.” It added that it never uses general email addresses such as “daum” and “naver.”
A Defense Ministry official noted that no data leaks had been confirmed as of now, adding that the DSC is expanding its investigation to trace the source of the hacking.
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