While South Korea has faced many cyberwarfare attacks in the past, the most recent attack has been successful in extracting classified intelligence.
South Korea announced on December 18 that it was investigating a hacking attack that netted secret defense plans with the United States and may have been carried out by North Korea.
The suspected hacking occurred late last month when a South Korean officer failed to remove a USB device when he switched a military computer from a restricted-access intranet to the Internet.
The plans are said to include an outline of Seoul’s and Washington’s strategy in the event of war on the Korean Peninsula housed in an 11-page document called OPLAN 5027 used to brief military officials.
This document included details of military operations involving South Korean and U.S. troops should North Korea conduct a pre-emptive strike or attempt to invade South Korea. One source stated that the document included details about the 700,000 US troops that would be used in the event of a full-scale war. It is also thought to include a list of targets in North Korea.
"Eleven pages of Powerpoint slides explaining the war plan for visiting military officers have been hacked, not the whole content of the contingency plan," a South Korean military official was quoted as saying.
Sources close to the event say that the systems security software should have issued a warning message if an external memory device is inserted into a military computer, but hackers may have been able to steal the military secrets because a military officer neglected these warning messages and broke regulations.
