South Korea’s unificaton ministry – the ministry which works on relations with North Korea – has been reportedly targeted by hackers using Chinese IP addresses.
An official at the ministry’s cyber security centre Kim Young-Pil told Yonhap news agency that the hackers had planted malware in the email account of an official in the ministry.
Kim added that the ministry has been subject to repeated cyber attacks.
The minsitry came to know about the hack attack after the National Intelligence Service (NIS) notified the ministry about the attempted attack, said an AFP report.
The NIS has asked the official to close the email account.
The ministry website was not disrupted by teh attempted hack attack.
Last month, South Korea had said that it suspected Chinese hackers for accessing personal data of up to 35 million users on an Internet portal and blogging site.
The Korean Communications Commission revealed details of the hack that affected the Cyworld website, along with a Web portal called Nate, both operated by SK Communications, according to a BBC report.
The communications regulator said the hackers targeted user’s phone numbers, email addresses, names and other coded information.
South Korean police is probing the case, which has been described as the country’s biggest cyber attack so far.
