North, South Korea Disrupted By Fresh Cyber-Attacks

South Korea raised its cyber-alert level on Tuesday following an attack which took a number of official websites offline for several hours, including that of the country’s Office of the President (Chong Wa Dae, or ‘the Blue House’), as well as several media websites.

A number of North Korean websites also went offline on Tuesday, including the websites of the country’s Korean Central News Agency, party newspaper Rodong Sinmun, portal Naenara and national airline Air Koryo, according to a report by South Korea’s Yonhap news agency.

War anniversary

The attacks, which coincide with the 63rd anniversary of the Korean War on 25 June, 1950, follow a number of cyber-attacks affecting both North and South Korea in recent years. The two countries are still officially at war, the 1950-53 conflict having ended with an armistice.

“The government can confirm a cyber attack by unidentified hackers that shut down several sites including the Blue House,” South Korea’s science ministry said in a statement, adding that the country’s five-stage cyber-alert level has been raised from one to two.

The websites for several South Korean government agencies, including the office for Government Policy Coordination and the ruling New Frontier Party, were affected by the attacks beginning at about 10:45 a.m. local time, or 01:45 GMT. The Blue House’s website was back online as of 07:00 GMT, according to a report by AFP.

South Korean officials declined to speculate as to the source of the attacks. However, several recent attacks on the country’s servers have been traced to North Korean sources.

Some of the South Korean hacked sites displayed statements praising North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un, while others displayed messages claiming that the hacks were carried out by hacking collective Anonymous.

On several Twitter accounts linked to Anonymous, members of the group denied involvement with the South Korean hacks, but claimed to have successfully taken North Korean servers offline as part of the group’s Operation Free Korea.

The South Korean hacks appear to be less serious than a 20 March coordinated attack which shut down the networks of television broadcasters KBS, MBC and YTN, halted financial services and hobbled the operations of three banks for a period of several days.

An official investigation concluded that that attack was carried out by North Korea’s military intelligence agency.

That incident occurred during a period of heightened tensions between the two countries following a North Korean nuclear test on 12 February. North Korea was also blamed for attacks on the South in 2009 and 2011, following the death of North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il.

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