Another wave of cyber attacks to hit S. Korean Web sites

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SEOUL, July 9 (Yonhap) -- Another wave of cyber attacks is expected to hit
government and private Web sites in South Korea later Thursday, a security
solutions company warned, in what would be the third assault in as many days.
Ahn Lab Inc. said its Internet security specialists expect cyber attacks on seven
South Korean Web sites to start at 6 p.m. and last about 24 hours. It said a file
that includes a list of targets was detected in the virus triggering the attacks
that have infected at least 29,000 personal computers in the country.
The targets are the Ministry of Public Administration and Security, Kookmin Bank
and the vernacular daily Chosun Ilbo, online auctioneer eBay's South Korean unit
and South Korea's three portals -- Naver, Daum, and Paran, it said.
On Tuesday and Wednesday, "denial of service" attacks overwhelmed major Web sites
in South Korea and the United States, deluging them with Internet traffic which
virtually took them off-line. Three companies -- Naver, Chosun Ilbo and
Auction.com -- were affected by all the previous assaults.
Unidentified hackers began their initial attack at 6:00 p.m. Tuesday, blocking
Internet users access to 26 Web sites, including the official site of South
Korea's presidential office and 14 government and private Web sites in the U.S.
While most of the sites were normalized within hours, hackers started 24 hours
later a new attack on seven additional Web sites, including the nation's spy
agency National Intelligence Service and well-known online security company Ahn
Lab.
Both the primary and the secondary attacks continued for 24 hours, according to
the specialists at Ahn Lab.
ygkim@yna.co.kr
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