South Korea Officially Accuses North Korea of Cyberattacks on Government Systems

South Korea Officially Accuses North Korea of Cyberattacks on Government Systems: South Korea’s Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning has accused the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) of attacking the systems of several government agencies, including the website of the presidential office, on June 25.

According to officials cited by Xinhua, the patterns used in the recent attack match the ones of North Korea’s previous cyberattacks.

A total of 82 pieces of malicious code and Internet access records have been analyzed. The IP addresses used in the recent cyberattacks on South Korea were traced back to North Korea.

Seoul has also confirmed that the March attacks against financial institutions and broadcasters are connected to the ones against government sites.

The connection between all major hacking operations against South Korea has also been confirmed by at least two IT security solutions providers.

Symantec has managed to find links between the pieces of malware used in several operations launched over the past four years. The company has attributed the attack to a group dubbed DarkSeoul, but it has failed to pinpoint who is sponsoring the crew.

McAfee has also published a detailed report on the cyber espionage campaigns against South Korea.