Blog #7 South Korea Blames China Too Soon!

In a surprising allegation occurred, today (Friday, March 22, 2013), when the South Korea government mistakenly pointed the finger in the wrong direction.  They were mistaken when they identified cyberattacks which “paralyzed the computer networks of banks and broadcasters” as an attack from China!  I can personally see the connection since I have been studying the recent attacks since early January.  China has been the center of attention in regards to cyber hacking.  So it’s no surprise when a case of attacks appear and all heads turn to China.  However, in this week’s event South Korea’s claim‘s that they jumped the gun too quickly.  When the internet address was traced from the attack on Wednesday it coincidentally matched one registered in China. 

What’s was China’s reaction to this?  Well, so far there have been no reports on China admitting to any cyberattacks reported in previous months from The United States.  Even though this may have been a slap to the face for the Chinese it was not one without cause.  For instance, China has used North Korean hackers in the past to stage attacks on South Korean banks, newspapers, and government sites.  Also, this is not China’s first accusation since the United States has been in a ‘war of worlds’ with the Chinese government for a few months. 

So if the South Korean’s weren't attacked by the Chinese government then who was it?  A government agency, known as the Korea Communications Commission, stated that the internet addressed belonged to a computer at NongHyup.  NongHyup was one of the three banks that were cyber hacked in South Korea on Wednesday.  This internet address was identical to one of China’s.  This was pure coincidence and since China has been blamed about potential cyberattacks in the United States it made it fairly easy to immediately blame China.  One the contrast, it was a good thing they double checked and apologized for the wrongly accused accusation.   

As of now the attacks still remain a mystery and the government investigators said it would take weeks to complete their analysis.  Sometimes it is even impossible to identify the hackers, but it is believed that there was probably a single group behind them.  The attack affected 32,000 computers and servers at South Korea’s two largest broadcasters, as well as one cable channel and three banks.  The bank’s A.T.M.’s were shut down and member’s could not use their debit cards.  As of Friday these banks were operating normally, but many of the affected broadcasters’ computers remained down. 

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/23/world/asia/south-korea-says-it-misidentified-source-of-cyberattack.html?partner=rss&emc=rss


Melanie Maldonado
3/22/2013
3:40 pm