Chinese hackers cyberattack 12 South Korean academic institutions
2 Min Read
South Korea's internet safety commission reports an attack on 12 South Korean academic institutions conducted by a Chinese hacker organization.
-
A digitally composed representation of a laptop with a Chinese flag (Getty Images)
During the Lunar New Year holidays, the websites of 12 South Korean academic institutions were cyberattacked by a Chinese hacking group called the Cyber Security Team, according to the Yonhap news agency, citing South Korea's internet security watchdog.
The incident occurred on Sunday, and the majority of affected institutions' websites were still unavailable on Wednesday morning, according to the news agency, which added that the cyberattack did not cause serious damage.
The victims included some departments at Jeju University and the Korea National University of Education, according to the Korea Internet and Security Agency, as well as the Korea Research Institute for Construction Policy.
According to the Yonhap news agency, the Chinese hacking group threatened to reveal 54 gigabytes of compromised data allegedly taken from the networks of 70 South Korean educational institutions that it hacked from Saturday to Tuesday.
On another note, last year, the Northwestern Polytechnical University in Shaanxi, China, announced that foreign hackers were caught sending phishing emails with Trojan horse programs (malware that misleads users) to teachers and students at the university, in an attempt to steal their data and personal information.
The day after, a police statement released by the Beilin Public Security Bureau in Xi’an stated that the attacks' intent was to lure teachers and students into clicking links of phishing emails, tricking them with themes involving scientific evaluation, thesis defense, and information on foreign travel, in order to obtain their email login credentials.
China’s National Computer Virus Emergency Response Center, and internet security company 360, formed a joint technical team to conduct a comprehensive technical analysis of the case and investigate the attack.
