ID :
69663
Thu, 07/09/2009 - 22:46
Auther :

Key Korean Web sites sustain renewed cyber attacks

SEOUL, July 9 (Yonhap) -- South Korea on Thursday came under a third round of cyber attacks, with the nation's key government and private Web sites reporting temporary paralyses or severe access disruptions, government and industry officials said.

Half a dozen Web sites operated by key government bodies, including the National
Assembly, defense ministry, foreign ministry and the National Intelligence
Service reported access delays and failures starting around 6 p.m., said the
officials.
Kookmin Bank, the mass-circulation Chosun Ilbo, leading computer vaccine firm Ahn
Lab Inc. and the United States Forces Korea also said their Web sites underwent
temporary access disruptions Thursday evening, apparently due to the so-called
"distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack."
DDoS attacks refer to a situation in which a multitude of compromised computers
attack a single target, thereby causing denial of service for legitimate users of
the compromised site.
Kookmin Bank, a leading state-funded lender, said it was forced to shut down its
Internet banking site for about 30 minutes until 6:30 p.m. after the site came
under the DDoS attack from unidentified hackers.
But the Ministry of Public Administration and Security's electronic government
site and the nation's leading portal sites, including Naver and Auction, escaped
the indiscriminate cyber attacks and were offering normal services as of Thursday
evening, said the officials.
"A third round of cyber attacks has already begun. But it is difficult for now to
estimate the exact damage to domestic Web sites," said an official at the
state-run Korea Information Security Agency.
"The government is working hard to minimize damage from the latest cyber attack
through closer cooperation with relevant institutions and companies," said the
official.
Beginning Tuesday, the DDoS attacks overwhelmed major Web sites in South Korea
and the United States, virtually taking them off-line. Unidentified hackers began
their initial attacks at 6:00 p.m. Tuesday, blocking Internet users from
accessing 26 Web sites, including the official site of South Korea's presidential
office Cheong Wa Dae and 14 government and private Web sites in the U.S.
Amid suspicions that North Korea may be behind the recent wave of Web site
outages, the unidentified hackers staged their second cyber attack on Wednesday
evening.
Ahn Lab warned earlier that a third wave of cyber attacks was expected to hit
government and private Web sites in South Korea Thursday evening.

X