N. Korea stole personal information of over million S. Koreans through hacking: source

SEOUL, July 12 (Yonhap) -- North Korea has stolen personal information of at
least 1.65 million South Koreans through cyber hacking since 2004, an
intelligence source said Sunday.

The North mainly targeted Web sites of retired military officials, research and
security-related centers and university alumni associations, the source told
Yonhap.
"The number of South Koreans whose personal information were confirmed to have
been stolen since 2004 is close to 1.65 million," the source said. "If suspected
cases are added, it would be close to 2 million."
The National Intelligence Service, South Korea's spy agency, has said it suspects
Pyongyang may be responsible for the cyber attacks last week on major Web sites
in South Korea, including the presidential office.
Since late Tuesday, 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.
sooyeon@yna.co.kr
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