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Air Force's website hacked presumably by N. Korea

Posted May. 26, 2016 11:20,   

Updated May. 26, 2016 11:38

한국어

The Korean Air Force (ROKAF)'s website has been hacked and out of service for 13 days this year. Due to a series of hack attacks against the South Korean government presumably by North Korea's Ministry of the People’s Armed Forces, the military authorities suspect North Korea for the hacking as well and are analyzing the malignant code that the hacker implanted.

The ROKAF's website was hacked in the beginning of this month according to several ROKAF officials on Tuesday. After taking actions immediately but failing to restore the website, the ROKAF Headquarters reported the issue to the Defense Ministry on May 12 and blocked access to the website. The ROKAF is running a temporary website with minimal functions that will probably not lead to personal information leakage. The ROKAF left a notice on the temporary website that says, "Errors have occurred in the server and access will be restored as soon as possible."

The military authorities speculate that the hacker would want to turn soldiers' computers into "zombie PCs." As soldiers account for the majority of the visitors to the website, the impact would be greater as malignant code could spread rapidly. The hacker could also target personal information from applications for joining the air force as a soldier or an officer or from reservations for accommodations or training centers. The hacking could be a detour to get into the National Defense Network or the Battle Field Network, which contain military operations.

"I have not received a report on how serious the damage is. We are trying to assess the damage," said an ROKAF official. "We also blocked the website to prevent the malignant code from spreading further as well as another hacking attempt from taking place."

This year, presumably North Korean hackers have constantly hacked Korea's military-related organizations. They hacked members of Korea's defense industry including Hanjin Heavy Industries and the Korean Air in February and April, respectively. This month, they sent Korean companies in defense industry emails with malignant code installation files.



손효주기자 hjson@donga.com