NORTH KOREA/SOUTH KOREA: South Korea warns North over cyber attack, Pyongyang denies allegations.

Record ID: 352420

  • Title: NORTH KOREA/SOUTH KOREA: South Korea warns North over cyber attack, Pyongyang denies allegations.
  • Date: 17th May 2011
  • Summary: SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA (MAY 16, 2011) (REUTERS) SOUTH KOREA'S UNIFICATION MINISTRY SPOKESMAN WALKING INTO ROOM JOURNALISTS NEWS BRIEFING (SOUNDBITE) (Korean) SOUTH KOREA'S UNIFICATION MINISTRY SPOKESMAN CHUN HAE-SUNG SAYING: "(North Korea's) cyber hacking, cyber terror on our civilian financial firm's (computer network) are a provocation on our society and it should be st
  • Embargoed: 1st June 2011 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Korea, Democratic People's Republic of, Korea, Republic of
  • City:
  • Country: Korea, Democratic People's Republic of
  • Topics: International Relations
  • Reuters ID: LVAGDLUXX7E4KEQ5QS9D9YH1JSY
  • Story Text: South Korea warns North Korea on a suspected bank cyber attack as Pyongyang denies involvement.
    South Korea called on Monday (May 16) for the immediate stop of cyber attacks they suspect to be carried out by the North, after an attack paralysed the computer network of a South Korean bank last month.
    "(North Korea's) cyber hacking, cyber terror on our civilian financial firm's (computer network) are a provocation on our society and it should be stopped immediately - that's our position as we mentioned, and there's no change with our stance," South Korea's Unification Ministry Spokesman Chun Hae-Sung said during a news conference in Seoul.
    North Korea accused Seoul of inventing a conspiracy to justify physical confrontation.
    The accusation that North Korean hackers were responsible for bringing down Nonghyup bank was the same type of fabrication as Seoul's assertion that Pyongyang sank one of its navy ships in March last year, a North Korean government agency said.
    "The (South Korean) fabricated schemes such as the Nonghyup computer network crash as well as the Cheonan case and the shelling on Yeonpyeong Island case can be regarded only to pursue the North-South Korean confrontation and to destroy peace and stability on the Korean peninsula," a newsreader from North Korea's state-run television KRT quoted the National Defence Commission, the North's supreme leadership body, as saying.
    The computer crash at Nonghyup affected millions of customers who were unable to use the bank's credit cards and ATMs for more than a week, exposing the South's heavily wired financial system's vulnerability to organised cyber attacks.
    South Korean prosecutors said the hacking was masterminded by a group of North Korean state-backed experts also responsible for previous cyber attacks on government and corporate sites in the South.
    North Korea has denied it was involved in the sinking of the South Korean navy ship Cheonan in March last year that killed 46 sailors, rejecting what Seoul and Western countries presented as evidence of Pyongyang's responsibility.
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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