Defiant North Korea appears to feel like demonstrating its military wherewithal. After successfully conducting a nuclear test, and a series of missile tests, they have now targeted cyberspace. During the first week of July the websites of the US White House and South Korea’s equivalent, the Blue House, were attacked, as were a few other US and South Korean government sites. The impact of this particular attack was limited; however, the attack demonstrates that “bloodless” cyber-warfare is a real possibility and needs to be addressed accordingly.

One characteristic of cyber-warfare is that it is very difficult to conclusively assign responsibility. This attack is no exception; the North Korean government has not accepted any responsibility, either. However, South Korean experts share the opinion that the attacks originated from North Korea and from some servers/ computers from the US, probably operated by North Korean sympathisers. Experts feel that these attacks are based on the code base of a “very old” virus called MyDoom. Some circumstantial evidence exists that the attacks were devised to target Korean language systems and the attacker may have used a Korean language email format.

The attacks were aimed not just at official sites but at finance and news sites in both countries. They were straightforward Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attempts, in which many computers simultaneously attempt to access one website, which then crashes. The entire attack was a bit rudimentary in nature, following a path perfected by large groups of online hackers over the last couple of years.

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