S. Korean watchdog warns of possible cyber attack

SEOUL, Aug. 7 (Yonhap) -- South Korea's telecom regulator advised the country's
Internet users Friday to take precautions against possible online attacks similar
to those that paralyzed major Web sites in early July.

Officials at the Korea Communications Commission (KCC) urged Web users to pay
extra attention to virus programs that allow hackers to make use of multiple
machines in launching the so-called distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks.

A DDoS attack most often involves flooding Web sites with large amounts of data,
rendering targeted servers unusable by obstructing their communication with
users' computers. The attacks generally involve multiple personal computers
infected by a virus, allowing individual hackers to drive more traffic to the
targeted site.
"On Thursday, popular social networks such as 'Twitter,' 'Facebook' and
'LiveJournal' were downed by the DDoS attack," said an official at the KCC.
"Personal computer users are advised to download vaccines for their computers."
The KCC said it has maintained its threat level against online attacks at normal.
It added, however, that the government was closely monitoring the possibility of
further attacks.
"There is no sign of an imminent DDoS attack in South Korea," said Hwang
Cheol-jeung, director of the network policy bureau at the KCC. "However, the KCC
and the Korea Information Security Agency (KISA) will be on alert over the
weekend."
Starting on July 7, Web sites operated by the government, banks and Internet
portals in South Korea and the United States experienced access delays and
failures due to massive DDoS attacks. The attacks continued for three days.
ygkim@yna.co.kr
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