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The Munhwa Ilbo reported Wednesday that at least some of the hackers who hacked into the computers of major national institutions like the National Assembly, Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute and Korea Institute for Defense Analyses were Chinese. In particular, one of the Chinese hackers has some Korean ability and could send emails in Korean, and the paper reported that the government has secured this concrete information on the individual such as his identity and his educational background.
Accordingly, the government has designated "a group of some size" operating in China as the principal offender in this hacking incident, and strengthened joint investigations with Taiwan, which was similarly victimized early this year and in June. The government also plans to seek the cooperation of the Chinese government with investigations in connection with Interpol.
According to a government official Wednesday, during the course of the investigation into this hacking incident, it was confirmed that the remote controllers controlling the hacking programs found on the computers on 211 personal computers at Korean national bodies were traced to ten computers somewhere in China.
According to the Munhwa Ilbo, the official said, "The investigation has gotten down deep, having finished confirming the identity of one of the Chinese hackers... Taking into account our diplomatic relations with China, however, we are regulating the speed of the investigation." He confirmed that the National Security Council has held 10 countermeasure meetings on this since June.
The official said, "Since the attachment files in the emails of bulletin board posts were written in Korean, at the beginning of the investigation, we wondered if this wasn't the work of North Korean [military] hacking units, but the investigation confirmed that it was a Chinese hacker with some Korean skills... We learned not only basic information on the hacker like his name and age, but also information like where he learned Korean." He added, however, that the hacker's spelling and grammar was awkward in spots, so the individual was not proficient in Korean.
Meanwhile, the National Intelligence Service's National Cyber Security and the Police Agency's Center Terror Response Center plans to visit Taiwan in the middle of this month for investigations into this incident. In Taiwan's case, a variety of the " Peep Trojan" hacking program was used early this year and in June. At the time, a Chinese daily newspaper, quoting a high-ranking minister, reported that, "Chinese intelligence infiltrated the Democratic Progressive Party's computer network and stole personal data from President Chen Shui-bian and other high-ranking officials. Taiwanese intelligence went into a state of emergency."
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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