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 that triggered the
attacks, which has infected at least 29,000 personal computers nationwide.
The targets are the Ministry of Public Administration and Security, Kookmin Bank
and the vernacular daily Chosun Ilbo, as well as on-line auctioneer eBay's South
Korean unit and three major South Korean Web portals -- Naver, Daum, and Paran,
it said.
On Tuesday and Wednesday, so-called "distributed denial of service" attacks
overwhelmed major Web sites in South Korea and the United States, virtually
taking them off-line. Three companies -- Naver, the Chosun Ilbo and Auction.com
-- were affected by those assaults.
Unidentified hackers began their initial attack at 6:00 p.m. Tuesday, blocking
Internet users from accessing 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 a new attack
started 24 hours later on seven additional Web sites, including South Korea's spy
agency and Ahn Lab.
Both the primary and the secondary attacks continued for 24 hours, according to
the specialists at Ahn Lab.
Meanwhile, South Korea's telecom regulator, the Korea Communications Commission,
said early Thursday it will cut off the infected computers' Internet access.
ygkim@yna.co.kr
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