PYONGYANG: A group of North Korean hackers had infiltrated a South Korean court computer network for nearly two years, siphoning off a significant amount of personal information, probe results revealed on Saturday.
According to findings from a joint investigation by the police, prosecution, and the National Intelligence Service, a staggering 1,014 gigabytes (GB) of data and documents were compromised between January 2021 and February 2023.
The hacking group, believed to be Lazarus, targeted Seoul’s court computer network, extracting detailed personal information such as names, resident registration numbers, and financial records.
Attributing the attack to North Korea, the investigative agencies pointed to the specific types of malicious codes utilized, settlements for leased servers with cryptocurrency assets, and IP addresses involved.
Despite the extensive breach, the investigation team only managed to identify 5,171 files totaling 4.7 GB, representing a mere 0.5 percent of the total leaked data. This revelation underscored vulnerabilities in the judiciary’s security management and response protocols.
To mitigate further harm, the team provided the compromised files to court authorities and notified affected individuals of the breach.
The investigation was initiated by the police in December, prompted by an internal probe launched by the court after detecting and blocking malicious code within the computer network earlier in the year.
