Tag Archives: South Korea

North Korea tried to hack South’s railway system, spy agency claims

SEOUL (Reuters) – North Korea has tried to hack into email accounts of South Korean railway workers in an attempt to attack the transport system’s control system, South Korea’s spy agency said on Tuesday.

South Korea has been on heightened alert against the threat of cyberattacks by North Korea after it conducted a nuclear test in January and a long-range rocket launch last month, triggering new U.N. sanctions.

South Korea had previously blamed the North for cyberattacks against its nuclear power operator. North Korea denied that.

South Korea’s National Intelligence Service (NIS) said in a statement it had interrupted the hacking attempt against the railway workers and closed off their email accounts.

The agency issued the statement after an emergency meeting with other government agencies on the threat of cyberattacks by the North.

The agency detected hacking attempts by the North against workers for two regional railway networks this year, the spy agency said.

“The move was a step to prepare for cyber terror against the railway transport control system,” the agency said.

It did not elaborate on what it thought North Korea’s specific objective was in hacking into the system. An agency official reached by telephone declined to comment.

North Korea has been working for years to develop the ability to disrupt or destroy computer systems that control public services such as telecommunications and other utilities, according to a defector from the North.

The United States accused North Korea of a cyberattack against Sony Pictures in 2014 that led to the studio cancelling the release of a comedy based on the fictional assassination of the country’s leader, Kim Jong Un.

North Korea denied the accusation.

In 2013, South Korea blamed the North for crippling cyber-attacks that froze the computer systems of its banks and broadcasters for days.

New fears of attacks on South Korea’s computer systems came as South Korean and U.S. troops conducted large-scale military exercises which North Korea denounced as “nuclear war moves” and threatened to respond with an all-out military offensive.

(Reporting by Jack Kim and Ju-min Park; Editing by Robert Birsel)

South Korea, U.S. begin military exercises as North Korea threatens attack

SEOUL (Reuters) – South Korean and U.S. troops began large-scale military exercises on Monday in an annual test of their defenses against North Korea, which called the drills “nuclear war moves” and threatened to respond with an all-out offensive.

South Korea said the exercises would be the largest ever following North Korea’s fourth nuclear test in January and a long-range rocket launch last month that triggered a U.N. Security Council resolution and tough new sanctions.

Isolated North Korea has rejected criticism of is nuclear and rocket programs, even from old ally China, and last week leader Kim Jong Un ordered his country to be ready to use nuclear weapons in the face of what he sees as growing threats from enemies.

The joint U.S. and South Korean military command said it had notified North Korea of “the non-provocative nature of this training” involving about 17,000 American troops and more than 300,000 South Koreans.

South Korea’s Defence Ministry said it had seen no sign of any unusual military activity by the North.

North Korea’s National Defence Commission said the North Korean army and people would “realize the greatest desire of the Korean nation through a sacred war of justice for reunification”, in response to any attack by U.S. and South Korean forces.

“The army and people of the DPRK will launch an all-out offensive to decisively counter the U.S. and its followers’ hysterical nuclear war moves,” the North Korean commission said in a statement carried by the North’s KCNA news agency.

The North, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), as it is officially known, routinely issues threats of military action in response to the annual exercises that it sees as preparation for war against it.

The threat on Monday was in line with the usual rhetoric it uses to denounce the drills.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei noted that North Korea had already said it opposed the drills, adding that Beijing was “deeply concerned” about the exercises.

“China is linked to the Korean Peninsula. In terms of the peninsula’s security, China is deeply concerned and firmly opposed to any trouble-making behavior on the peninsula’s doorstep. We urge all sides to keep calm, exercise restraint and not escalate tensions,” he told a daily news briefing.

The latest U.N. sanctions imposed on North Korea were drafted by the United States and China as punishment for its nuclear test and satellite launch, which the United States and others say was really a test of ballistic missile technology.

South Korea’s spy agency said it would hold an emergency cyber-security meeting on Tuesday to check readiness against any threat of cyber attack from the North, after detecting evidence of attempts by the North to hack into South Korean mobile phones.

South Korea has been on heightened cyber alert since the nuclear test and the rocket launch.

South Korea and the U.S. militaries began talks on Friday on the deployment of an advanced anti-missile Terminal High Altitude Area Defence (THAAD) system in South Korea.

(Reporting by Jack Kim and James Pearson; Additional reporting by Jessica Macy Yu in Beijing; Editing by Robert Birsel)

U.N. imposes harsh new sanctions on North Korea over its nuclear program

By Louis Charbonneau and Michelle Nichols

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – North Korea faces harsh new U.N. sanctions to starve it of money for its nuclear weapons program following a unanimous Security Council vote on Wednesday on a resolution drafted by the United States and Pyongyang’s ally China.

The resolution, which dramatically expands existing sanctions, follows North Korea’s latest nuclear test on Jan. 6 and a Feb. 7 rocket launch that Washington and its allies said used banned ballistic missile technology. Pyongyang said it was a peaceful satellite launch.

U.S. Ambassador Samantha Power said the sanctions go further than any U.N. sanctions regime in two decades and aim to cut off funds for North Korea’s nuclear and other banned weapons programs.

All cargo going to and from North Korea must now be inspected and North Korean trade representatives in Syria, Iran and Vietnam are among 16 individuals added to a U.N. blacklist, along with 12 North Korean entities.

Previously states only had to inspect such shipments if they had reasonable grounds to believe they contained illicit goods.

“Virtually all of the DPRK’s (North Korea) resources are channeled into its reckless and relentless pursuit of weapons of mass destruction,” Power told the council after the vote, adding that the cargo inspection provisions are “hugely significant.”

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon welcomed the 15-nation council’s move, saying in a statement that Pyongyang “must return to full compliance with its international obligations.”

North Korea has been under U.N. sanctions since 2006 because of its four nuclear tests and multiple rocket launches.

After nearly two months of bilateral negotiations that at one point involved U.S. President Barack Obama and his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, China agreed to support the unusually tough measures intended to persuade its close ally to abandon its atomic weapons program.

China’s Ambassador Liu Jieyi called for a return to dialogue, saying: “Today’s adoption should be a new starting point and a paving stone for political settlement of the nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula.”

However, he reiterated Beijing’s concerns about the possible deployment of an advanced U.S. missile system in South Korea.

“At this moment all parties concerned should avoid actions that will further aggravate tension on the ground,” he said. “China opposes the deployment of the THAAD anti-missile system … because such an action harms the strategic and security interests of China and other countries of the region.”

He was referring to the U.S. Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system.

There was no immediate reaction from the North Korean U.N. mission. The official North Korean news agency KCNA said on Monday the proposed sanctions were “a wanton infringement on (North Korea’s) sovereignty and grave challenge to it.”

Shortly after the U.N. move, the U.S. Treasury Department said it was blacklisting two entities and 10 individuals for ties to North Korea’s government and its banned weapons programs, and said the State Department was also blacklisting three entities and two individuals for similar reasons.

The new U.N. sanctions close a gap in the U.N. arms embargo on Pyongyang by banning all weapons imports and exports.

The Security Council’s list of explicitly banned luxury goods has been expanded to include luxury watches, aquatic recreational vehicles, snowmobiles worth more than $2,000, lead crystal items and recreational sports equipment.

There is also an unprecedented ban on the transfer to North Korea of any item that could directly contribute to the operational capabilities of its armed forces, such as trucks that could be modified for military purposes.

The new U.N. measures also blacklist 31 ships owned by North Korean shipping firm Ocean Maritime Management Company (OMM).

Added to the U.N. sanctions list was the National Aerospace Development Agency, or NADA, the body responsible for February’s rocket launch.

Newly blacklisted individuals include a senior official in North Korea’s long-range missile program, senior officials at NADA, officials for Tanchon Commercial Bank in Syria and Vietnam, and Korea Mining Development Trading Corporation (KOMID) representatives in Iran and Syria.

An earlier draft would have blacklisted 17 individuals but the proposed designation of a KOMID representative in Russia was dropped from the final version of the resolution.

(Reporting by Louis Charbonneau and Michelle Nichols; Editing by James Dalgleish)

South Korea demands more sanctions on ‘serial offender’ North

By Stephanie Nebehay and Tom Miles

GENEVA (Reuters) – South Korea’s foreign minister called on the U.N. Security Council to expand sanctions on North Korea on Wednesday to punish what he called an escalating and increasingly threatening nuclear program.

Yun Byung-se called North Korea a “serial offender” and denounced Pyongyang’s fourth nuclear test and latest long-range missile launch, carried out in January and February.

North Korea’s Ambassador Se Pyong So said his country’s nuclear program was designed to ensure peace on the divided Korean peninsula, and warned that more sanctions would bring a “tougher reaction”.

Both men addressed the U.N.-backed Conference on Disarmament in Geneva hours before major powers were scheduled to vote at the U.N. Security Council across the Atlantic on a resolution to expand sanctions on North Korea.

The United States also condemned Pyongyang’s actions.

“The international community stands united in its firm opposition to the DPRK’s development and possession of nuclear weapons,” Christopher Buck, deputy U.S. disarmament ambassador, told the Geneva talks.

“We do not and will not accept North Korea as a nuclear-armed state.”

LANDMARK RESOLUTION

After nearly two months of bilateral negotiations, China last month agreed to support new measures in the Security Council to try and persuade its ally North Korea to abandon its atomic weapons program.

Pyongyang has been under U.N. sanctions since 2006 because of its nuclear tests and multiple rocket launches.

“It’s no wonder that the Security Council will very soon put up a landmark resolution with the strongest ever non-military sanction measures in seven decades of U.N. history,” South Korea’s Yun said.

The credibility of the nuclear non-proliferation regime needed to be protected, he added.

“Even at this moment, Pyongyang is accelerating its nuclear weapons and missile capabilities from nuclear bombs and hydrogen bombs to ICBMs and SLBMs,” he said referring to intercontinental ballistic missiles and submarine-launched ballistic missiles.

“We have heard Pyongyang officially state its intention not only to further develop its nuclear weapons and missiles but also to use them.”

Japan’s parliamentary vice-minister for foreign affairs, Masakazu Hamachi, said North Korea’s actions had undermined the security of Northeast Asia and the rest of the world.

North Korea’s envoy retorted that the nuclear program was “not directed to harm the fellow countryman but to protect peace on the Korean Peninsula and security in the region from the U.S. vicious nuclear war scenario.”

“The more sanctions will bring about tougher reaction,” So said.

(Reporting by Tom Miles and Stephanie Nebehay; writing by Stephanie Nebehay; Editing by Andrew Heavens and John Stonestreet)

North Korea warns against U.S., South Korea military exercises

SEOUL (Reuters) – North Korea warned on Tuesday of harsh retaliation against South Korea and its ally the United States, which are preparing for annual joint military exercises next month amid heightened tensions following the North’s nuclear test and rocket launch.

The North calls the annual exercises preparations for war and routinely vows to retaliate.

“All the powerful strategic and tactical strike means of our revolutionary armed forces will go into preemptive and just operation to beat back the enemy forces to the last man if there is a slight sign of their special operation forces and equipment moving to carry out the so-called ‘beheading operation’ and ‘high-density strike,'” the Supreme Command of the Korean People’s Army said in a statement carried by state media.

It said its first target would be South Korea’s presidential Blue House, while U.S. military bases in Asia and on the U.S. mainland would be its secondary targets. About 28,500 U.S. troops are based in South Korea.

Last week, South Korean President Park Geun-hye warned of tough measures against the North following its January nuclear test and its long-range rocket launch this month, saying Pyongyang’s pursuit of nuclear weapons would speed the collapse of the regime.

South Korea and the United States say both actions were violations of U.N. Security Council resolutions, and are pushing for further sanctions.

Days after the rocket launch, South Korea suspended the operation of the Kaesong industrial zone just north of the border, which had been run jointly with the North for more than a decade.

Isolated North Korea and the rich, democratic South are still technically at war after their 1950-53 conflict ended in a truce, not a treaty.

(Reporting by Tony Munroe and Ju-min Park; Editing by Nick Macfie)

U.S. flies F-22 fighters over South Korea after North’s rocket launch

OSAN, South Korea (Reuters) – The United States flew four F-22 stealth fighter jets over South Korea on Wednesday in a show of force following North Korea’s recent rocket launch and ahead of the allies’ joint military drills next month aimed at deterring Pyongyang’s threat.

The flight of the radar-evading F-22s, based in Okinawa, Japan, is the latest deployment of key U.S. strategic military assets to the South after the North defied warnings from world powers and conducted a fourth nuclear test last month.

South Korea and the United States said the North’s rocket launch on Feb. 7 was a long-range missile test and violated U.N. Security Council resolutions that ban the use of ballistic missile technology by the isolated state.

North Korea said it was a satellite launch.

The U.S. military said at the weekend that it had deployed an additional Patriot high-velocity missile interceptor unit to South Korea in response to recent North Korean provocations.

The allies were also expected to begin discussions on the deployment of the advanced Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile defense system.

Last month, the United States flew a B-52 bomber capable of carrying nuclear weapons on a low-level flight over the South following the North’s Jan. 6 nuclear test.

The joint military drills scheduled to start in March, which in most years last eight weeks and involve hundreds of thousands of South Korean and U.S. troops, will be the largest ever, according to South Korean officials.

There are 28,500 U.S. troops stationed in the South as part of combined defense with the South’s military of more than 600,000. The North has an army of 1.2 million.

North Korea claims the annual drills are war preparations. South Korea and the United States say the exercises, which have been conducted for years without major incident, are defensive.

(Writing by Jack Kim; Editing by Michael Perry)

South Korea, U.S. to discuss missile defense as South cuts power to Kaesong

SEOUL (Reuters) – South Korea will begin talks with Washington as early as next week on deploying an advanced U.S. missile defense system following North Korea’s rocket launch, an official said on Friday, as Seoul cut power to a factory park run jointly with the North.

The discussions would focus on placing one Terminal High Altitude Area Defence (THAAD) unit with the U.S. military in South Korea after the North’s launch last weekend, a South Korean defense official told Reuters on condition of anonymity.

Seoul and Washington said the test violated U.N. Security Council resolutions.

South Korea on Wednesday suspended operations at the Kaesong industrial zone as punishment for the rocket launch and a nuclear test last month. The zone, located just inside North Korea, had operated for more than a decade.

The North called the move “a declaration of war” on Thursday and expelled the South’s workers. Kaesong was the last venue for regular interaction between the divided Koreas.

The 280 South Koreans who had remained in Kaesong rushed to leave the industrial park on Thursday evening, completing the pullout at 11:05 p.m, the South’s Unification Ministry, which handles relations with the North, said.

A few minutes before midnight, the South shut off the supply of electricity into Kaesong that powered the factory zone, the ministry said early on Friday. It also cut the water supply.

The United States, Japan and South Korea are seeking tougher sanctions against the North following the nuclear test and rocket launch.

Isolated North Korea regularly dismisses the South as a puppet of the United States and just as regularly accuses both of acts of war against it.

U.S. military officials have said the THAAD system was needed in South Korea, but Seoul had been reluctant to openly discuss its deployment as it tried to balance its alliance with the United States and ties with China, its biggest trade partner.

South Korea and the United States said that if THAAD was deployed to South Korea, it would be focused only on the North.

China and Russia have expressed concern about the potential deployment of a system that operates a radar that could penetrate deep into their territories.

THAAD, built by Lockheed Martin Corp, is designed to intercept and destroy ballistic missiles inside or just outside the atmosphere during their final phase of flight.

KAESONG CONFLICT

South Korea accused the North of “illegal” acts by freezing the assets of South Korean companies in Kaesong, warning that Pyongyang would be held responsible for any consequences from the industrial park’s suspension.

The Kaesong project employed about 55,000 North Koreans, who were given a taste of life in the South, working for the 124 mostly small- and medium-sized manufacturers that operated there, about 54 km (34 miles) northwest of Seoul.

The average wage for North Korean workers was roughly $160 a month, paid to a state management company. Except for Kaesong, both countries forbid their citizens from communicating with each other across their heavily armed border.

Despite volatile North-South relations, Kaesong had been shut only once before, for five months in 2013 amid heightened tensions following Pyongyang’s third nuclear test.

(Editing by Tony Munroe and Dean Yates)

North Korea says South’s pulling out of industrial zone ‘declaration of war’

PAJU, South Korea (Reuters) – North Korea said it was kicking out all South Koreans from the jointly run Kaesong industrial zone on Thursday, calling the South’s move to suspend operations, in retaliation for Sunday’s rocket launch by the North, a “declaration of war”.

The North declared the industrial park, run by the rivals as a symbol of cooperation for more than a decade, a military control zone, the agency that handles its ties with Seoul said, according to the official KCNA news agency.

Dozens of South Korean trucks were already returning across the border earlier in the day, laden with goods and equipment, after the South said it was pulling out.

“Unpardonable is the puppet group’s act of totally suspending the operation in (Kaesong), finding fault with the DPRK’s H-bomb test and launch of a satellite,” the North’s Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea said, referring to South Korea.

Isolated North Korea regularly dismisses the South as a puppet of the United States and just as regularly accuses both of acts of war against it.

DPRK is short for the North’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. North Korea tested what it said was a hydrogen bomb on Jan. 6 and on Sunday launched a rocket, putting a satellite into orbit.

The United States, Japan and South Korea said Sunday’s launch was a ballistic missile test, and like last month’s nuclear test, a violation of U.N. resolutions. The U.S. Senate voted unanimously in favor of tougher sanctions.

North Korea ordered South Koreans out of the zone by late afternoon, forbidding them to take anything other than personal belongings, KCNA said. South Korea said after the North’s announcement that its top priority was the safe return of all of its people.

Halting activity at the park, where 124 South Korean companies employed about 55,000 North Koreans, cuts the last significant vestige of North-South cooperation – a rare opportunity for Koreans divided by the 1950-53 war to interact on a daily basis.

North Korean workers were given a taste of life in the South at the complex, about 54 km (34 miles) northwest of Seoul, including snack foods like Choco Pies and toiletries that were resold as luxury items in the North.

They also rubbed shoulders with their managers from South Korea. Supporters of the project said that kind of contact was important in promoting inter-Korean understanding, despite concerns that Pyongyang might have used proceeds from Kaesong to help fund its nuclear and missile programs.

RISKS AND REWARDS

Except for Kaesong, both countries forbid their citizens from communicating with each other across the world’s most fortified frontier.

“We piled up instant noodles, bread and drinks in our warehouse so North Korean workers could come here and eat freely,” said Lee Jong-ku, who runs a firm that installs electrical equipment for apparel factories in Kaesong. “We don’t mind them eating our food, because we only care about them working hard.”

For the North, the revenue opportunity from Kaesong – $110 million in wages and fees in 2015 – was deemed worth the risk of exposing its workers to influences from the prosperous South. In recent years, North Koreans have had increasing access to contraband media, exposing them to life in the South and China.

Still, Pyongyang took precautions to ensure the workers it hand-picked for the complex had minimal contact with their South Korean managers that could be potentially subversive.

“These North Korean workers are strongly armed ideologically,” said Koo Ja-ick, who was waiting on the south side of the border on his way to Kaesong, where he has worked at an apparel company for the past four years.

“They never act individually. They always work and move in a group of two, even manager-level people do so. They never go to the bathroom by themselves – always in groups,” he said.

The average wage for North Korean workers at Kaesong was roughly $160 a month, paid to a state management company. The workers received about 20 percent of that in coupons and North Korean currency, said Cho Bong-hyun, who heads research on North Korea’s economy at IBK Bank in Seoul.

A South Korean government official involved in North Korea policy said it was difficult to see how operations could be resumed anytime soon at Kaesong, which opened in 2005.

Shares of several leading companies in the Kaesong zone plunged in Thursday trading, falling by nearly 10 percent or more. Defense shares, on the other hand, performed strongly.

Despite volatile North-South relations over the years, Kaesong had been shut only once before, for five months in 2013, amid heightened tensions following its third nuclear test. Its future had often seemed uncertain over the past decade.

(Additional reporting by Jack Kim in Seoul; Writing by Tony Munroe. Editing by Bill Tarrant and Nick Macfie)

U.S. and allies aim to track North Korean rocket launch

SEOUL/TOKYO (Reuters) – The United States has deployed missile defense systems that will work with the Japanese and South Korean militaries to track a rocket North Korea says it will launch some time over an 18-day period beginning Monday.

China, the North’s sole major ally but opposed to Pyongyang’s nuclear program, appealed for calm.

North Korea has notified U.N. agencies it will launch a rocket carrying what it called an earth observation satellite some time between Feb. 8 and Feb. 25, triggering international opposition from governments that see it as a long-range missile test.

North Korea says it has a sovereign right to pursue a space program. But it is barred under U.N. Security Council resolutions from using ballistic missile technology.

Coming so soon after North Korea’s fourth nuclear test, on Jan. 6, also barred by Security Council resolutions, a rocket launch would raise concern that it plans to fit nuclear warheads on its missiles, giving it the capability to strike South Korea, Japan and possibly the U.S. West Coast.

China has told North Korea that it does not want to see anything happen that could further raise tension, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said, describing “a serious situation”, after a special envoy from China visited North Korea this week.

The United States has urged China to use its influence to rein in its neighbor.

Speaking to President Park Geun-hye, Chinese President Xi Jinping said he hoped all parties could bear in mind the broader picture of maintaining peace and stability on the peninsula, and “calmly deal with the present situation”, China’s Foreign Ministry said.

“The peninsula cannot be nuclearized, and cannot have war or chaos,” Xi said, also repeating a call for dialogue.

Japan’s Asahi Shimbun newspaper quoted Pentagon officials as saying that fuelling of the rocket appeared to have begun. It cited satellite footage showing increased activity around the missile launch and fuel storage areas, suggesting preparations for a launch could be completed within “a number of days” at the earliest.

A launch would draw fresh U.S. calls for tougher U.N. sanctions that are already under discussion in response to the nuclear test.

What would likely be an indigenous three-stage rocket will be tracked closely. South Korea and Japan have put their militaries on standby to shoot down the rocket, or its parts, if they go off course and threaten to crash on their territory.

“We will, as we always do, watch carefully if there’s a launch, track the launch, (and) have our missile defense assets positioned and ready,” U.S. Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said on Thursday.

“We plan a lot about it. We and our close allies – the Japanese and the South Koreans – are ready for it.”

South Korea has said its Aegis destroyers, its Green Pine anti-ballistic missile radar and early warning and control aircraft Peace Eye are ready.

A U.S. Navy spokesman confirmed the missile tracking ship USNS Howard O. Lorenzen arrived in Japan this week but declined to say if it was in response to the North’s planned launch.

SEARCH FOR CLUES

Boosters and other parts will also be tracked as they splash into the sea, in the hope they can be retrieved and analyzed for clues on Pyongyang’s rocket program.

“Retrieving parts or objects from the launch vehicle are the most important part of the rocket analysis,” said Markus Schiller, a rocketry expert based in Germany.

North Korea said the launch would be during the morning and gave coordinates of where the boosters and payload cover would drop in the Yellow Sea off the Korean Peninsula’s west coast and the Pacific to the east of the Philippines.

The U.S. Navy has sonar equipment and unmanned vehicles that could be used to help recover parts, according to Navy officials. It was not clear if that equipment is in the region.

North Korea last launched a long-range rocket in December 2012, sending what it described as a communications satellite into orbit.

South Korea’s navy retrieved the section of the first stage booster that was part of the fuel tank and one of the four steering engines that confirmed the presence of technology and materials that North Korea had not been known to possess.

Analysis pointed to a launch vehicle capable of carrying a payload of about 500 kg (1,100 lb) more than 10,000 km (6,200 miles), according to South Korea.

A typical nuclear warhead weighs about 300 kg, although North Korea is not believed to have been able to miniaturize a nuclear weapon to that size.

Recovered parts allowed experts to conclude that the second stage booster likely used Soviet-era Scud missile technology and did not use advanced propellant, indicating the rocket was suited for satellite launch but unfit to deliver a warhead.

“My guess is that if you took the rocket they used last time and put a warhead on it you probably would not be able to reach the United States,” said David Wright, co-director and senior scientist at the Global Security Program of the Union of Concerned Scientists.

The search for information on the North’s rocket program will not be easy.

“Some of the more interesting parts, high-efficiency engines and guidance systems, are in the upper stages, and those usually fall far out to sea, at high speed into deep water,” said John Schilling, an aerospace engineer.

“Harder to find than that Malaysian airliner everybody has been looking for all last year.”

(Additional reporting by Andrea Shalal, David Brunnstrom, Ben Blanchard and Elaine Lies; Editing by Tony Munroe, Robert Birsel and Ralph Boulton)

South Korea suspects North Korea may have attempted cyber attacks

SEOUL (Reuters) – South Korea said on Wednesday it suspected North Korea of attempting cyber attacks against targets in the South, following a nuclear test by the North this month that defied United Nations sanctions.

South Korea has been on heightened military and cyber alert since the Jan. 6 test, which Pyongyang called a successful hydrogen bomb test, although U.S. officials and experts doubt that it managed such a technological advance.

“At this point, we suspect it is an act by North Korea,” Jeong Joon-hee, a spokesman of the South’s Unification Ministry, told a news briefing, when asked about reports that the North might have attempted cyber attacks.

Authorities were investigating, Jeong said, but did not provide further details.

Last week, South Korean President Park Geun-hye said the scope of threats from North Korea was expanding to include cyber warfare and the use of drones to infiltrate the South.

North Korea has been using balloons to drop propaganda leaflets in the South, amid heightened tension on the Korean peninsula since the nuclear test.

Since the test, there have been unconfirmed news reports that the computer systems of some South Korean government agencies and companies had been infected with malicious codes that might have been sent by the North.

Defectors from the North have previously said the country’s spy agency, run by the military, operates a sophisticated cyber-warfare unit that attempts to hack, and sabotage, enemy targets.

South Korea and the United States blamed North Korea for a 2014 cyber attack on Sony Pictures that crippled its systems and led to the leaks of unreleased films and employee data.

At the time, the company was set to release the film, “The Interview”, featuring a fictional plot to assassinate North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

North Korea has denied the allegation.

In 2013, cybersecurity researchers said they believed North Korea was behind a series of attacks against computers at South Korean banks and broadcasting companies.

(Reporting by Ju-min Park and Jack Kim; Editing by Tony Munroe)