US and South Korea Targeted in Series of Cyber Attacks

Many important government departments in both the US and South Korea are being assailed via the internet through a series of DDOS attack. So far the attacker is unclear although South Korea’s National Intelligence Service seems to think North Korea may be behind it.

The attacks were aimed mostly at internet sites of major government agencies like the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Aviation Administration. Even the Washington Post was targeted. Similar agencies were targeted in South Korea, and despite many people pointing to North Korea as the aggressor, there is currently no confirmation that any of the attacks came from North Korean government agencies.

All the attacks are relatively simple Distributed Denial of Service attacks, created by having massive numbers of computers send waves of data at sites in an effort to overwhelm them. So far, no one has elaborated on the effects of the attack although it sounds as if there weren’t any permanent problems from it. Officials are still working to curb the attacks and find those responsible.

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