S. Korean defense networks under increasing attack by hackers

(ATTN: ADDS cases of virus infection; RECASTS lead, headline; RESTRUCTURES; TRIMS)
By Sam Kim
GWACHEON, South Korea, June 16 (Yonhap) -- South Korea's defense networks are
attacked an average of 15,000 times a day by hackers and hit with viruses another
80,000 times, the top military intelligence agency said Tuesday.

The figure represents a 20-percent increase compared to last year, the Defense
Security Command (DSC) said in a statement. Eleven percent of the hacking attacks
are "sophisticated attempts to extract military intelligence," while the rest are
relatively easier to head off, it said.
"Eighty-nine percent of them are simple attempts to hack into servers and
Internet homepages," the DSC said.
The DSC, which hosted a one-day conference on cyber security in the city of
Gwacheon, just south of Seoul, did not say where the attacks originated.
Speaking at the conference, Yoo Ho-jin, a National Intelligence Service official,
said his agency recently proposed the president name an aide to deal with cyber
security.
"Our country continues to be vulnerable. Some of our government branches failed
to function when we recently simulated a cyber attack on them," he said. "This is
a grave threat to our national security."
A South Korean defense source said earlier this year that North Korea operates a
cyber warfare unit that seeks to disrupt South Korean and U.S. military networks.
The North's Korean People's Army has been operating for years a "technology
reconnaissance team," which is exclusively in charge of collecting information
and disrupting military computer networks in South Korea and the U.S., the source
said on condition of anonymity.
Roughly 100 hackers, mostly graduates of a leading military academy in Pyongyang,
are in the team, hacking into South Korean and U.S. computer networks, the source
said.
samkim@yna.co.kr
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