North Korea has obtained the names and e-mail addresses of most South Korean military officers and launched cyber attacks on the e-mail accounts of generals to steal sensitive information, a government source said Monday. The Army Cyber Warfare Command last Friday issued an immediate alert warning officers not to open suspicious e-mails. "There has been an increase in e-mails purporting to be messages from military academy alumni, but tracking them led to suspicions that they were sent by North Korean hackers," the source said.
"We don't know how many e-mails North Korean hackers sent to academy graduates, but this seems to have been going on for some time," the source added.
The hackers apparently targeted officers using hanmail e-mail accounts. Some of the e-mails come with viruses that infect the user's computer when attached files are opened, while others cause damage the moment they are opened.
A military source said, "It is impossible to access hanmail accounts from the military's intranet, so we don't expect any damage to that, but it is a big problem if North Korean hackers have the e-mail addresses of so many military academy graduates."