Cyber Attack -2013

Cyber Attack: 2013

Yes, there has recently been a cyber attack which was targeted at 2 major South Korean banks and some top TV broadcasters. On Tuesday March 20th the screens of the victimized computers went blank at 2 p.m. local time. This attack resulted in crash of computer networks and paralyzing several bank machines across the country. Although the systems at the South Korean military were not affected, the army raised its defense level amid the situations.

Suspicion over the attack is clearly focused on North Korea, as Pyongyang had threatened Seoul with attack in recent days. But South Korea says an initial investigation showed a Chinese internet address was the source of a cyber attack on one of the companies shut down by computer crashes. One of the telecom regulator also commented on the attack stating that a Chinese address created the malicious code in the server of one of the banks, NongHyup, that crashed on Wednesday. Many experts around the world believe hackers often launch attacks via computers in other countries in an attempt to keep their identities from being exposed. With a quick act of the government, regulators distributed vaccine software to government offices, banks, hospitals and other institutions to prevent more outages. 

Several days before the attack North Korea had accused South Korea and the US of staging a cyber attack that shut down its websites for two days the week before. Well, North Korea has staged several cyber attacks targeting South Korea and U.S. institutions since 2009. Major ones include the 2011 attack which knocked out South Korean servers at banks, conservative newspapers & institutions and the 2009 attacks that brought down US government sites. But Pyongyang has been denying the attacks.

By: Sahaj Bhattarai