S. Korea to set up center to counter cyber attacks

SEOUL, July 12 (Yonhap) -- South Korea's finance ministry said Sunday it plans to set up a security center within the year to systematically counter cyber attacks on financial and economic policymaking bodies.

Since late Tuesday, major Web sites operated by the government, banks and
Internet portals in South Korea and the United States have reported access delays
and failures, due to massive so-called distributed denial-of-service (DDoS)
attacks.
Hackers initiate a DDoS attack by telling a network of "zombie" computers to
contact a specific Web server repeatedly. The sudden increase in traffic can
cause the site to load very slowly for legitimate users, or crash completely.
The Ministry of Strategy and Finance said the counter-cyber attack center would
coordinate security-related tasks with major bodies including the Bank of Korea
and the National Tax Service.
The center will primarily seek out ways to prevent attacks by hackers, analyze
network vulnerability and monitor overall security to detect and issue early
warnings.
"The government plans to create a cyber security center to draw up systemic and
comprehensive countermeasures" to cyber attacks, an official at the ministry
said.
The finance ministry was not a target in the recent cyber attacks, but in
February hackers were able to gain access to its intranet. The ministry said that
no serious data was leaked and that an investigation is still underway.