Intelligence has yet to confirm North's role in cyber attacks

(ATTN: LEADS with intelligence agency saying it has yet to confirm North Korean
involvement)
SEOUL July 11 (Yonhap) -- South Korea's main intelligence agency said Saturday it
has yet to conclude that North Korea was behind massive cyber attacks that
severely slowed or disrupted dozens of South Korean government and business Web
sites earlier this week.
But the National Intelligence Service (NIS) said there is ample circumstantial
evidence that points to North Korean involvement in the attacks on 36 South
Korean Web sites, including the presidential Cheong Wa Dae, for three days
starting on Tuesday.
"A thorough investigation is under way to find out concrete evidence that the
North is responsible for the attacks," the intelligence said in a statement,
adding that it has yet to make a final conclusion.
Earlier, the spy agency was quoted as reporting to the ruling Grand National
Party (GNP) that it has obtained a North Korean document ordering its military
hacking unit to "destroy" the South's communication networks.
"The intelligence obtained a document in which North Korea ordered on June 7 a
hacking unit, 'Number 100,' under the wing of the General Staff of the People's
Army, to destroy puppet communication networks of the South," a GNP official said
after the meeting with the intelligence agency.
In the purported document, North Korea also ordered its military to develop
hacking programs that conceal the identity of the attackers, according to the
party official.
In a closed-door meeting with National Assembly's information committee members a
day earlier, the intelligence agency also pointed its finger to North Korea but
did not present any concrete evidence, according to Park Young-sun, a lawmaker
from the main opposition Democratic Party.
Other key South Korean Web sites that come under attack also included the
Ministries of Defense and Foreign Affairs, commercial banks and a major
newspaper. By Saturday, all those sites were back up and running normally,
officials said.
On Friday, the nation's telecom regulator, the Korea Communications Commission,
blocked five Internet addresses found to have diffused the malicious codes that
launched the so-called "distributed denial-of-service (DDos)" attacks.
DDos attacks invite massive amounts of computers to a single site simultaneously,
bringing a server into a breakdown.
pbr@yna.co.kr
(END)