South Korea Accuses North Korea For Hacking Their Railway Systems

South Korea Accuses North Korea For Hacking Their Railway Systems 

There is an accused occurred to Pyongyang for attempting to hack the railway control systems and smartphones of wiretap officials of South Korea. And this accused has been occurred by South Korea’s National Intelligence Service.

On Tuesday, the National Intelligence Service said in a press conference that the hackers penetrated the smart phones of senior South Korean Officials and they used to send texts or voice messages which is later reported by Yonhap news agency.

The NIS has also claimed that the North Korean attackers are reaching the targets to gain the control over the railroad systems of South Korea by hacking the e-mail accounts of South Korean railway workers.

NIS also said that it was detected that attacking attempts were done by North Korean hackers that were against the railway network employees, but it can't be assumed that what is the specific objective of these attacks. As well as those hackers had been interrupted and their email accounts were also closed.

The agency said, “The move was a step to prepare for cyber terror against the railway transport control.” 

Due to the increased chances of attack, the safety measures should be tightened and all subway lines in Seoul should step up their network security.

Last week in the international community toughened sanctions the Intelligence service has already been warned that North Korea is “likelier than ever” for carrying more hacking attacks.

Reuters reported that according to the accounts of attackers of North  Korea that is a secretive country which is creating its cyber capabilities for destroying computer systems as well as controlling the telecommunications and other useful sections.

However, according to the government policy of North Korea, most of the online services are distributed in all institutions individually by a free domestic-only intranet which is known as Kwanmyong. And the interesting part is that only limited users have the accessibility power to the global network in which government employees and foreigners comes under special authorization. 

That’s why North Korea has repeatedly been accusing of hacking attempts against the South Korea. Even in 2013 Seoul claimed that Pyongyang for disabling cyber attacks that froze all the network system of their banks as well as broadcasters for days.

It did not stop there, the list is going to be increased and again in December 2014, North Korea was blamed on Sony Pictures Entertainment for cyber attacks. According to the New York Times, later in December of the same year, North Korean again faced the accessing problems. And now this time, the US was suspected of a complete outage failure due to which the whole internet accessibility was destroyed.

Whereas Chosub Ilbo newspaper reported that according to the National Assembly Intelligence Committee of South Korea in August last year, the North Korean attackers also attempted to hack the smart phones of some 1000 "important figures."

Even high alert had been announced in South Korea since the North Korea conducted a nuclear test in January and satellite launch in February that is seen by many people in the West as a trial launch of missile which is a long-range ballistic missile. And both of them triggered for a new UN sanctions and also for an intensive US-South Korean military drill.

Even on Monday, some 15000 American troops and 3,00,000 South Korean personnel commenced for testing their readiness to counter what both the countries called the threat of North Korea. 

Reuters reported earlier Tuesday that Seoul will introduce a new set of sanctions against the 40 individuals and 30 entities, and the suspected was linked to North Korea’s weapons program. Whereas the financial sanctions suspected towards a Singaporean and a Taiwanese national. 

Now Seoul will ban vessels that is stopped at North Korean ports in the past 180 days. That will become the discouraging point for shipping and trading companies for doing business with the North Korea.

A Foreign Ministry Official said to the reporters in a joint briefing with other agencies that this does not end here the Seoul will also cancel the chances of the participation in a pilot project that brought Russian coal to South Korea through the North Korean port of Rajin.