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Websites of defense, environment ministries hit by cyberattack

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This photo captured from the defense minstry's website shows the distributed denial-of-service (DDos) attack on its website, Nov. 6. Yonhap

This photo captured from the defense minstry's website shows the distributed denial-of-service (DDos) attack on its website, Nov. 6. Yonhap

The websites of the defense and environment ministries suffered service disruptions this week after being targeted by a cyberattack, officials said Wednesday, following the South Korean cybersecurity watchdog's warning of North Korea's possible hacking attacks.

The distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack took place first on the defense ministry's website at about 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, prompting the military to take response measures, a ministry official said, adding the website is currently back online.

A separate attack on the environment ministry's website was detected Wednesday morning, according to the ministry. The website was down for a period in the morning before being restored.

"Not just the environment ministry but several ministries have been hit by DDoS attacks," said an official of the National Information Resources Service, which is affiliated with the interior ministry. "The attacks seem to have died down for now, but we're continuing to defend against them as they are not over."

The website of the Joint Chiefs of Staff also appeared to be suffering connection instability as of Wednesday morning, leading the Cyber Operations Command to look into the issue.

A DDoS attack refers to a situation where a large number of infected devices are used to overwhelm a target server or website with a massive volume of traffic.

A military official said authorities have blocked the IP addresses of the source of the attack on the defense ministry's website, noting that such attacks are uncommon on the ministry's website.

Authorities are currently looking into who might have been behind the attack.

On Monday, South Korea's cybersecurity watchdog called on local organizations and businesses to increase their data protection readiness, citing rising risks of hacking attacks related to North Korea's troop dispatch to Russia. (Yonhap)