Investigators have traced a coordinated cyberattack that paralyzed tens of thousands of computers at six South Korean banks and media companies to a Chinese Internet Protocol address, authorities in Seoul said Thursday.
IP addresses, which are unique to each computer connected to the Internet, can easily be manipulated by hackers operating anywhere in the world, and the investigation into who was actually behind Wednesday's attack and whether they were in China could take weeks. Suspicion for the simultaneous shutdown is still focused on North Korea, which has threatened Seoul and Washington in recent days over U.N. sanctions imposed for its Feb. 12 nuclear test and is accused of waging similar cyberattacks over the past four years.
The cyberattack did not affect the government or military, and there were no immediate reports that customers' bank records were compromised. But it disabled scores of cash machines across the country, disrupting commerce in this tech-savvy, Internet-dependent country, and renewed questions about South Korea's Internet security and vulnerability to hackers.
If the attack was in fact carried out by North Korea, the purpose would seem to be to send a tacit message — and a warning — to South Korea that Pyongyang is capable of breaching its computer networks.
By: Brant
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