North Korea Planned a Gigantic Cyber Attack Against South Korea

The report came a week after a senior U.S. State Department official told Reuters that North Korea had restarted production of plutonium fuel, indicating that it planned to pursue its nuclear weapons program in defiance of global sanctions that followed its fourth nuclear test in January.

Among the documents suspected to have been compromised were the design map of the wing of the U.S. F-15 fighter jet and photos of parts of a medium altitude unmanned surveillance aircraft being developed by Korean Air, police said.

Lotte is South Korea’s fifth-largest conglomerate, with the value of the real estate owned by its listed affiliates estimated at 10.7 trillion won (US$9.12 billion) as of 2015, according to corporate tracker Chaebul.com. Over 160 major companies and government organizations use the system, police said.

Reclusive North Korea and the rich, democratic South are technically still at war because their 1950-53 conflict ended in an armistice, not a peace treaty.

Popular “network management software” was targeted in the attacks but South Korea cops refused to name the affected platform. In their investigation, the police found that documents had been stolen from subsidiaries of the Hanjin Group, including Korean Air, and subsidiaries of the SK Group, including SK Networks Service. North Korea denied the accusation.

Authorities in Seoul reportedly stated that out of over 42,000 materials stolen, more than 40,000 were defense related. The attack originated from an internet address based in Pyongyang and used in a 2013 cyberattack that disabled the computer systems of South Korean banks and TV stations, the police said.

South Korea Army has resumed Tuesday its crackdown in neutral waters close to the estuary of the Hangang River waters between the two Koreas to expel Chinese illegal fishing boats, said the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS). “Rather than stealing documents, they appear to have been gearing up for a large-scale cyber terror attack”, said a source with the police.