S. Korea reports halt in computer attacks

S. Korea reports halt in computer attacks
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SEOUL, July 10 (Yonhap) -- The cyber attacks that have hit dozens of Web sites in
South Korea over the past three days appeared to have been halted late Friday,
with no fresh attacks likely, 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 send massive junk requests to the point that the Web
sites were not able to function normally and shut down.
"The third round of attacks faded away as of 6:00 p.m.," said a government
official on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the
matter.
South Korean authorities said they have not seen any signs of additional attacks.
"At the moment, there are no clear signs of an additional attack," said Hwang
Cheol-jeung, a senior official at the nation's telecom regulator, the Korea
Communications Commission, adding cautiously that hackers could be merely lying
low before striking again.
NHN Corp., which runs South Korea's leading portal site, Naver, said it also
witnessed a distinct decrease in the attacks.
"The traffic to Naver was normalized in the afternoon. However, we are still
watching the situation," said an official at NHN. Naver was one of the main
targets during the four-day attack, as its mail services underwent temporary
access disruptions.
In an effort to stem the spread of the "distributed denial-of-service" attacks,
the commission blocked earlier in the day five Internet addresses, which were
found to have distributed the virus code used in the cyber assaults.
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 7 p.m. Friday, the commission had received 335 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.
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
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