Asia-PacificKorea

North Korea doubles number of hackers: South Korea

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South Korean sources say neighboring North Korea has doubled the number of its elite hackers over the past two years.

The South’s Yonhap news agency quoted a South Korean military source as saying on Sunday that Pyongyang now has 5,900 personnel in its cyber war unit, compared with about 3,000 two years ago.

North Korea “operates a hacking unit under its General Bureau of Reconnaissance, which is home to some 1,200 professional hackers,” the source said.

The source claimed that North Korean hackers have carried out cyber attacks through their overseas bases in states like China.

According to the report, North Korean hackers have used malware deployments and virus-carrying emails for their attacks on South Korean targets, such as commercial banks, media websites, government agencies and military institutions, over the past few years.

Following an investigation of past large-scale cyber attacks on its websites, South Korea concluded that they were originated in North. Pyongyang, however, has denied any role in the cyber assaults on South Korean targets and accused its neighbor of fabricating the attacks to fuel tensions.

In June 2013, South Korea’s Science Ministry confirmed a cyber attack against presidential website Blue House, the website for the office for Government Policy Co-ordination and some media servers. The shutdown came on the 63rd anniversary of the start of the 1950-53 Korean War.

In March 2013, three South Korean broadcasters and two banks came under a cyber attack that paralyzed computer networks and ATMs across the country.

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