By Shannon Tiezzi
The cyber attack, which set off warning bells in Seoul, has been traced to IP address in Shenyang, China.
While the world followed the strange saga of the hacking operation against Sony Pictures, allegedly carried out by North Korea in response to a film depicting the assassination of Kim Jong-un, a separate cyber security breach unfolded in South Korea. South Korea’s nuclear plant operator, the Korea Hydro and Nuclear Power Co. Ltd. (KHNP), said on Monday that its computer systems had been hacked, with “non-critical” data (including the personal information of 10,000 employees as well as designs for two reactors) stolen and leaked online by the attackers. The incident raised major concerns about the ability of South Korean infrastructure to withstand cyber attacks – especially given the attractiveness of this asymmetric capability for Pyongyang.
Though Seoul and KHNP were adamant that the hack did not threaten the operations of South Korea’s nuclear power plants, the incident has prompted soul-searching over cyber security. President Park Geun-hye herself called the security lapse “unacceptable.” “Nuclear power plants are first-class security installations that directly impact the safety of the people,” Park told her cabinet, according to The Guardian.
South Korea’s government is investigating the attack on KHNP. Messages posted on Twitter by a user claiming responsibility for the attack demanded that three nuclear power plants be shut down; the authenticity of the messages could not be verified. So far Seoul has not officially accused Pyongyang of being responsible for the hacking, but government officials say the activity originated from Shenyang, a Chinese city near the North Korean border, believed to be an operations base for North Korean cyber experts. Given that, Justice Minister Hwang Kyo-ahn told the Korea Times, “We aren’t ruling out the possibility that North Korea was behind the latest hacking attack.” South Korea previously blamed Pyongyang for a series of cyber attacks on banks and media outlets in 2013.
Read the full story at The Diplomat