1075 Cases of Cyberterrorism Including Hacking and Ransomware Detected... Police to Establish 'Cyberterrorism Response Center'

Slight Decrease in Incident Numbers, Increase in Arrest Rate
Focus on Combating New Virtual Asset-Related Crimes

[Asia Economy Reporter Lee Gwan-joo] As cyber attacks such as hacking and ransomware increase, the police have apprehended over 1,000 offenders involved in information and communication network intrusions through focused crackdowns. The police are also promoting the establishment of a specialized response system by creating a 'Cyber Terror Response Center.'

The National Police Agency's National Investigation Headquarters announced on the 28th that through this year's focused crackdown on information and communication network intrusion crimes, they arrested 1,075 cases involving 619 individuals, among whom 19 were detained.

From March 1 to October 31, over eight months, the police concentrated on cracking down on hacking (simple intrusion, account theft, data leakage, data destruction), ransomware and other malicious program distribution, and DDoS attacks. As a result, compared to the same period last year, the number of incidents decreased by 5.3% (from 2,985 cases to 2,825 cases), and the arrest rate increased by 16.8%. A police official explained, "Due to factors such as COVID-19, the number of information and communication network intrusion crimes surged last year, so this year shows a slight decrease, but the overall number of incidents continues to increase."

By type of occurrence, hacking was the most frequent with 2,128 cases (75.3%), followed by malicious programs (77 cases), ransomware (42 cases), and DDoS (11 cases). The police actively resolved numerous cases involving ransomware such as GandCrab and Clop ransomware, which are rarely apprehended even worldwide, through proactive international cooperation and investigative capabilities.

The police also actively responded to new types of cybercrimes related to virtual assets that have recently become frequent. Through international cooperation, they recovered 4.5 billion KRW of virtual assets stolen from one exchange from overseas exchanges, and froze approximately 500 million KRW of criminal proceeds stored in a domestic exchange after stealing the victim’s mobile phone.

To establish a dedicated cyber terror response system, the police plan to create a division-level organization called the Cyber Terror Response Center within the Cyber Investigation Bureau of the National Investigation Headquarters. A police official urged, "To prevent information and communication network intrusion crimes such as hacking, which have a high risk of causing secondary and tertiary damage, please pay special attention to hacking damage and report any incidents using the National Police Agency’s Cyber Crime Reporting System (ECRM)."