South Korean police claim $6m was stolen after 30 hackers from the North infiltrated online game servers in Seoul
One is the most wired country in the world, with 90% of its homes hooked up to the internet. The other refuses its population internet access and even restricts mobile phone usage.
But North Korea, whose people may be the most cut-off nation on the planet, stands accused by its southern rival of operating an elaborate hacking network that allegedly broke into online sites hosted in South Korea and stole prize points worth almost £3.7m ($6m).
The North blustered on Sunday that it had nothing to do with the hacking scheme. Its grandly named Committee for Peaceful Unification of the Fatherland issued a riposte rather at odds with its name, accusing the "puppet authorites" of fabricating allegations. The Korean Central News Agency was blunter, telling the South Koreans to "shove the cheap gimmicks".
Police in the south believe 30 North Korean hackers based in northeast China were hired to infiltrate Seoul-based online game servers and build so-called "auto programs" based on the data they siphoned. Investigators arrested five South Koreans last week and accused them of building and distributing the illegal programs. They said some of the proceeds went to the cash-strapped regime in Pyongyang.
North Korea has been accused of launching several cyber attacks on the South in the past – crippling the computer networks of a major local bank and attacking the websites of the presidential office and other government agencies earlier this year – but it was the first time North Korean hackers were suspected of making a profit from their activities.
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Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/aug/14/north-korean-hackers-steal-6m
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