S. Korea reports decrease in computer attacks

(ATTN: CHANGES number in para 2, 6)
SEOUL, July 10 (Yonhap) -- The cyber attacks that have hit dozens of Web sites in
South Korea for the past three days fell into a lull Friday amid tighter security
measures, with no fresh attacks likely, telecom officials said.

A total of 36 major Web sites in the nation, including that of the presidential
office, were overwhelmed from Tuesday by three rounds of attacks that used
malicious code programmed to erase data from computer hard drives.
"Computer attacks seem to have entered a phase of settling down, given the sharp
reduction in the amount of traffic to infected Web sites," said Hwang
Cheol-jeung, a senior official at the nation's telecom regulator, the Korea
Communications Commission.
"At the moment, there are no clear signs of an additional attack," he said.
In an effort to stem the spread of the "distributed denial-of-service" attacks,
the commission blocked five infected Internet addresses earlier in the day.
Although no attempts to infiltrate computer servers of government and private
firms were detected, malicious code likely infected at least 50,000 personal
computers nationwide, according to the Internet security specialists.
As of 5 p.m. Friday, the commission had received 298 reports of damage to
computer hard drives.
Earlier Friday, South Korean anti-virus makers, including industry leader Ahnlab
Inc., released free software online for computer users to detect and remove the
malicious code.
The commission said it has not seen any signs of additional attacks, but Hwang
warned that hackers could be merely lying low before striking again.
In a closed briefing to the parliament Friday, the National Intelligence Agency
told legislators that the attacks originated from 86 Internet-protocol addresses
in 16 countries, including South Korea, the United States, Germany, Austria and
Georgia.
ygkim@yna.co.kr
(END)