SEOUL, South Korea – North Korea is to blame for last month’s cyberattacks on the websites of South Korean media companies and the president and prime minister’s offices, a South Korean investigation concluded Tuesday.
South Korea’s ministry of science said it was blaming North Korea based on analysis of codes, Internet addresses and personal computers used to launch the attacks. The attacks occurred June 25, the 63rd anniversary of the beginning of the Korean War.
It is the latest of several cyberattacks in recent years that Seoul blames on North Korea. Pyongyang has denied previous claims and has accused the U.S. and South Korea of a cyberattack in March that shut down its own websites for two days.
The South Korean government-led team of investigators said the online assaults were planned for several months, and the attackers hacked file-sharing websites in South Korea to find security weaknesses.
An investigator told reporters that the attackers tried to steal personal information from the websites targeted in the June 25 cyberattacks, but it was not clear when the attempt took place. Local media reported that the personal information of millions of people was stolen from the presidential office’s website and the ruling party.