http://times.hankooki.com/lpage/tech/200609/kt2006091317573311780.htm By Kim Tae-gyu Staff Reporter 09-13-2006 Hackers from Iran and Turkey vandalized many South Korean Internet sites last month. This is possibly due to Korea's continued stationing of forces in Iraq. In its monthly report, the National Cyber Security Center (NCSC) announced of late that the number of defacement attacks on Korean Web sites rose to 28 last month, more than tripling July's total of 9. On some sites, attempts were made to replace the normal content with specific political or social messages, while other attacks were focused on erasing content entirely. ``Most of the attacks came from Iran and Turkey. We are trying to learn the reason,'' said an official at the NCSC, the affiliate of the country's spy agency, the National Intelligence Service. Experts here suggest the attacks may be related to the presence of Korean soldiers in Iraq, which they say can encourage some Muslim extremists to vandalize Korean Web sites. This is not the first time such a possibility has been voiced. In February, the National Police Agency issued a warning about politically motivated cyber attacks against Korean Web sites. This coincided with the third anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. At the request of Washington, Seoul dispatched up to 3,600 troops to Iraq in Aug. 2004, representing the third-largest foreign force after the United States with 155,000 and Britain with 8,500. Korea has substantially cut down numbers to roughly 2,800 _ mostly construction and medical staff _ but it is not considering pulling out all soldiers. In this climate, AhnLab, Korea's foremost online security company, keeps a tab on possible defacement and other attacks in the virtual world. ``We always monitor vandalizing attempts like defacement or denial of service (DoS) attacks, in particular from Muslim countries,'' said Kang Eun-sung, a senior researcher at AhnLab. DoS attacks are a more serious threat than defacement as the activities are aimed at shutting down corporate networks by flooding them with useless traffic. _________________________________ HITBSecConf2006 - Malaysia The largest network security event in Asia 32 internationally renowned speakers 7 tracks of hands-on technical training sessions. Register now: http://conference.hitb.org/hitbsecconf2006kl/
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