MADRID, 20 Ago. (EUROPA PRESS) –
A group of North Korean hackers have tried to access computers linked to the joint military exercises between the United States and South Korea that begin this Monday with the aim of obtaining security information about them, but they have not obtained classified information, it has been reported. Bloomberg this Sunday citing the South Korean Police.
According to the Gyeonggi Nambu Provincial Police, since April last year, the suspected hackers had been sending malicious emails to various employees of one of the companies participating in the drills.
Thus, in January of this year, hackers managed to get hold of the account of one of these workers and installed a code for their control. However, there is no indication that sensitive material of any kind was obtained in this way.
Although repeated attempts to obtain data from military operations have failed, some of the hacked computers have been affected.
South Korean police maintain that this case is related to the North Korean hacking group Kimsuky, which has used similar techniques in its attacks before.
In addition, as the US Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency has denounced, the activities of the Kimsuky group focus on issues of foreign policy and national security that, in one way or another, are related to the Korean peninsula.
Police and authorities in both countries have been investigating a series of emails from a sender impersonating the US military to South Korean employees of the US military in South Korea ahead of joint military exercises, according to the report. Police statement.
For its part, North Korea has denounced joint drills as preparation for invasion for decades, and in recent years Kim Jong Un’s regime has intensified its provocations to coincide with the exercises. Along these lines, for years, his army of hackers has made cyber forays to help raise funding for his weapons programs and phishing campaigns, looking for information that could be of use to Pyongyang.
The 11-day Ulchi Freedom Shield joint exercises “are designed to be more realistic and tough to strengthen the alliance’s combined defense posture and response capabilities based on scenarios that reflect various threats within the security environment and the lessons learned from recent wars and conflicts,” the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) explained in a statement a week ago.
These drills will take place days after the historic tripartite meeting between the leaders of the US, South Korea and Japan at Camp David, where they agreed to new measures to defend against nuclear and missile threats from North Korea. Among them, the exchange of information in real time on missile launches and the intensification of joint military maneuvers between the three countries.
