[EDITORIALS]Chinese Army cyber attacks

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[EDITORIALS]Chinese Army cyber attacks

It turns out that one of the suspects that hacked into the computers of some of our government organizations is a student at a foreign language school operated by the People’s Liberation Army of China.
Our government, assuming that the source of this incident is located in China, has asked the Chinese government to support an investigation and has instructed the Korean Embassy to China to verify the details.
In the past there have been hacking attacks on Korea that originated from China, but this time it’s different. According to our investigations, the recent hacking attack was not done by an individual, but a special organization, with the purpose of collecting intelligence, has attacked concentrating on major government organizations.
The fact that an identification of an official was used points to a well organized and planned attack. If the Chinese Army is indeed involved in this case, it is not a simple matter. Our government needs to conduct a thorough investigation and determine who was behind the attack. It is not going to be a walk in the park.
While tracing a hacker is technically very hard, if the Chinese army is involved, it is hard to expect thorough inspection. The Chinese government needs to realize that the incident could act as a catalyst for a much bigger diplomatic problem between our two nations, hence full support is needed.
Apart from the investigation, we need to raise our awareness against hacking, while establishing a security system and groom human resources to deal with such a problem. Last year, 26,000 hacking incidents occurred, an increase of 72 percent from the previous year.
Attacks from China stand at 10,628 cases already for the first half of the year. China has been grooming their own hacking units starting in the early 1990s, showing a keen interest. We have to be more careful not to become exposed to these kinds of attacks.
Even without China the world has become already a place where silent cyber warfare and cyber terror have become a norm. Hence, establishing an early warning system and an international network is a matter of utmost urgency.
If we fail to devise a countermeasure, not only will information leak, but also a situation will occur where our defense and financial networks are attacked and the security of our nation is at stake.
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