South Korea hit by massive cyber attack

 

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By Reuters

Posted on 8 Jul 2009 at 08:51

South Korean authorities have issued a cyber-security warning after several government agency and financial institution websites were disabled by hackers.

The websites of the presidential office, Defense Ministry, and the National Assembly were saturated with access requests generated by malicious software, crippling server response to legitimate traffic, South Korea's Communications Commission says in a statement.

"The attacks consisted of massive harmful traffic to specific sites causing access slowdown or disablement, and some national institutions, banks and media sites have been targeted," it reads.

The commission is working to block the spread of malicious software suspected of causing the attack and has advised users to keep security patches and anti-virus programmers up to date.

Police and prosecutors have begun an investigation into the incidents.

A similar attack on major websites in Estonia two years ago prompted the NATO military alliance to review its response against possible "cyber-warfare."