S. Korea to train 3,000 sheriffs to enhance cyber security

SEOUL, Sept. 13 (Yonhap) -- South Korea said Sunday it will train 3,000 "cyber
sheriffs" by next year to fight cyberterrorism, about two months after the
nation's major government agencies, banks and Internet sites were hit by massive
cyber attacks of unknown origin.
The plan was made public after a government-wide meeting Friday to bolster the
nation's cyber defenses, government officials said.
In early July, as many as 26 major government and private-sector Web sites,
including the presidential office, the Ministry of National Defense, the National
Assembly and Shinhan Bank, went down or had access problems due to distributed
denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks.
No significant damage was reported because the attacks weren't aimed at
destroying programs or data, but investigators failed to determine who was behind
the attacks.
Besides training sheriffs to combat cyber attacks, the plan calls for the
National Intelligence Service to coordinate with other government agencies and
the private sector in case a cyber attack is launched, officials said.
"The July 7 DDoS attacks offered a chance for the government to check again
pan-government countermeasures," said a government official.
Tech-savvy South Korea is one of the world's most concentrated markets for
high-speed Internet. There are about 16 million broadband Internet subscribers,
accounting for more than a third of the population.
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