Malware, IP address, and attack methods all point to the North, they say
The attacks on South Korea's presidential office website as well as other government and media sites last month on the anniversary of the Korean War came out of North Korea, officials in South Korea said today.
Researchers at McAfee this month concluded that the latest attacks were tied to earlier ones against South Korean interests, and that the high-profile DDoS and data destruction attacks on major South Korean banks, media outlets, and other entities were cover for the theft of military secrets about South Korea and the U.S. McAfee says cyberespionage actors posed as hacktivists, knocking websites offline and wiping hard drives in the so-called Dark Seoul DDoS and data annihilation attacks.
McAfee dubbed the four-year spying operation "Operation Troy," which also targeted U.S. Forces Korea, Republic of Korea, the Korean Department of Defense, and the U.S. Department of Defense, according to McAfee.
Officials from the South Korean Internet and Security Agency say they discovered an IP address used in the latest attack that was identical to one used in other attacks by North Korea, according to multiple international media reports. The malware and attack methods also matched those of previous attacks by North Korea, according to Reuters.
Park Jae-moon, a director-general at the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning, was quoted in a BBC article, saying that "[A] North Korean IP [address] was found in passages of the malignant codes and some of the damaged organisations. I can say this is the decisive evidence."
Park said the analysis came from malware collected from infected machines as well as Internet addresses used in the attack.
North Korean officials to date have said they are a victim of cyberattacks and were not behind the attacks on South Korea. As of this posting, officials there had not commented on the South Korean findings.
Have a comment on this story? Please click "Add Your Comment" below. If you'd like to contact Dark Reading's editors directly, send us a message.
About the Author(s)
You May Also Like
Defending Against Today's Threat Landscape with MDR
April 18, 2024The fuel in the new AI race: Data
April 23, 2024Securing Code in the Age of AI
April 24, 2024Beyond Spam Filters and Firewalls: Preventing Business Email Compromises in the Modern Enterprise
April 30, 2024Key Findings from the State of AppSec Report 2024
May 7, 2024
Black Hat USA - August 3-8 - Learn More
August 3, 2024Cybersecurity's Hottest New Technologies: What You Need To Know
March 21, 2024