S Korea to tighten Internet security against cyber attack

Seoul, Mar 22: Security of the state Internet network being used by central and local administrations will be beefed up, the home affairs ministry said today, after the country came under a massive cyber attack, known as the distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack, early this month.

The Ministry of Public Administration and Security said it will put intranets of city, county and ward offices as well as the state Internet network under the protection of the government's computer system to automatically shut off abnormally heavy traffic and provide security against DDoS attacks.

The government will also build a computer system for sharing information on malignant codes in cooperation with civilian experts, Kim Nam-seok, the first vice home affairs minister, said during a forum with chief computer security officers here.

Hiring 60 more computer security officials for central and local governments and providing them short-term domestic and overseas trainings this year were also part of the countermeasures.

In addition, the ministry will organize a study team with civilian and government computer experts so they can work out measures to deal with the varietal DDoS attack or a new type of massive cyber attack, the official said.

About 30 government and business Web sites came under the DDoS attack for two days from March 4, with about 50,000 "zombie" computers infected with a virus seeking simultaneous access to selected sites and swamping them with traffic.

PTI (Yonhap)