By Jun Ji-hye
The military’s cyber warfare command engaged in suspicious online activities ahead of the general election in 2012 in an apparent bid to influence voters, a fact-finding team under the Ministry of National Defense said Thursday.
Announcing the interim results of its investigation, the team said the Cyber Command under the Lee Myung-bak government created “operational guidance for psychological warfare” in cyberspace “to respond to election meddling by North Korean sympathizers in the general election.” The election took place April 11.
The command is facing allegations that it conducted online smear campaigns against liberals during the general and presidential elections under the conservative Lee and Park Geun-hye governments.
The operational guidance called for mobilizing the personnel of the command specializing in psychological warfare to conduct such an operation from March 12 to April 11 in 2012.
The then-Defense Minister Kim Kwan-jin approved the guidance on March 9 of that year, the team said.
“We are continuing our investigation to find out why the Cyber Command had to go all out to conduct such an operation ahead of the general election,” the team said in a release.
The team also found the command operated an online media outlet, called “Point News,” disguised as private media.
The command used 340 million won ($313,000) from the government budget to operate the outlet from 2011 to 2013, the team said, adding this money was from the budget of the National Intelligence Service.
Currently, 7,521 news articles remain on the server, and of them, 4,837 were posted by the command personnel and the rest by civilians hired by the command.
Reports posted on the website included “We should not let North Korean sympathizers and leftist forces handle the presidential election.”
The Cyber Command was launched in 2010 to counter North Korea’s hacking attempts and other cyber-attacks. But it was allegedly mobilized to sway voters in favor of former conservative governments.