Caught Off Guard

2008-04-22 08:47

http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/opinon/2008/04/202_22949.html The Korea Times Editorial 04-22-2008 Hackers Attack Presidential Office's Computer Network A series of hackers' attacks have hurt South Korea's pride in its information technology (IT) and Internet prowess. People are shocked by reports that the presidential office's computer network was hacked into in mid-February. This case is raising serious worries about the country's poor Internet security system, which might threaten national security. What's more surprising is that the government failed to detect the hacking until late March. How can we boast of our technological breakthrough in information and communication technology after the heart of the administration was infiltrated? No doubt South Korea's online security system was caught off guard despite its self-praised feat of e-government and e-commerce. It is a shame that the government had failed to take tighter security measures to prevent potential leaks of confidential information about national security, diplomacy, defense, economy, etc. The presidential office's initial reaction to the first report by The Hankook Ilbo, sister paper of The Korea Times, disrupted public trust. The Korean language daily carried a front-page article, ``Cheong Wa Dae Attacked by Hackers,'' in its Tuesday edition. The office denied the report immediately, but had to admit to the incident less than two hours later. It is disappointing that officials are still accustomed to denying any media reports before telling the truth. A Cheong Wa Dae official said a type of worm virus penetrated the desktop computer of an employee belonging to the National Security Council (NSC) just before then-President Roh Moo-hyun retired Feb. 24. He confirmed that stolen data included national security-related surveys, writing manuals, reports and other NSC data. But the official said the data were neither confidential nor critical to the country's national security. The virus is presumed to have originated from a neighboring country. There were also suspected hacking attempts into the office's Internet Saturday. The NSC employee has been investigated as he is suspected of violating information security guidelines that ban officials from storing data on their personal computers. We cannot understand why the official ignored the regulations, becoming the target of the hacking. No wonder government officials have little sense of information security. There are growing suspicions that the lack of discipline among officials during the power transition period has provided a brewing ground for computer hacking. In this regard, Cheong Wa Dae officials under President Roh cannot avoid responsibility for their poor security measures. President Lee Myung-bak said in a briefing of the Ministry of Public Administration and Security in March 15 that his computer did not work at his office for 10 days from the Feb. 25 inauguration day. The glitch could be attributed to the hacking. Some officials may face allegations that they had tried to cover up the incident. It is still irritating to know that the government has yet to determine the amount and content of the leaked data. The government and businesses should go all-out to establish a watertight online security system to ensure national security and information privacy, or we might lose an ``information war'' in an Internet-based information society. _______________________________________________ Subscribe to the InfoSec News RSS Feed http://www.infosecnews.org/isn.rss

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