North Korea Behind Attack on South Korea, U.S. Sites?

South Korea's intelligence agency has hinted that North Korea may be behind a denial-of-service attach on South Korean and U.S. government Web sites.

Over the last couple days, a total of 26 sites in South Korea and the United States—including the White House—have been targeted by a denial-of-service attack designed to prevent users from accessing the sites, at times effectively taking the sites offline. Now South Korea’s National Intelligence Service has said the attacks are the work of an organization or state—quite possibly North Korea. What makes the attacks unusual is that they’ve been effective for a comparatively long period of time, and, while South Korea is known for being one of the world’s most-wired nations, North Korea’s impoverished state isn’t generally considered a hotbed of cyber-warfare expertise. Now, however, South Korean intelligence apparently believes North Korea has been ramping up its online attack capability.

The denial of service attacks come immediately after North Korea fired seven ballistic missiles into the Sea of Japan on July 4, rapidly re-elevating tensions with Japan, South Korea, and the United States, and drawing swift condemnation from the U.N. Security Council.

Targeted Web sites in South Korea include the defense ministry, the national assembly, and the office of the president, along with banks and media sites.