South Korean Banks, Media Hacked
Worries have heightened again about unfriendly governments. The U.S. government has accused China of hacking American companies, and potentially parts of the federal government, as a mean to gather data or disrupt Internet operations.
Now South Korea, a major U.S. ally, said that its media and banks have been broken into, probably by North Korean interests. The tension between the two neighboring nations has risen sharply over the past several months.
According to the Telegraph:
Authorities in Seoul were not immediately able to pinpoint the cause of the system failures and the national security office declined to speculate on where the attack may have originated, although suspicion immediately fell on North Korea.
"Reports have been made simultaneously, so we have dispatched investigators to the scene," an official in the National Police Agency's cyber-terrorism department told Yonhap News.
National broadcasters KBS, MBC and YTN reported shortly after 2pm that their computer networks had inexplicably come to a complete halt. Editing equipment had also been affected, affecting broadcasts. Shinhan Bank and Nonghyup Bank reported that their systems had also been affected at the same time.
Filed under: 24/7 Wall St. Wire, China, Internet, Politics
