Increasing North Korean Hacks "2300 Attempts Made This Year on Ministry of Unification and Others"

Assemblyman Cha Ji-ho Emphasizes Preparedness for Surge in Hacking Incidents

North Korea's hacking attempts continue unabated. This year alone, the number of hacking attempts targeting the Ministry of Unification has been identified as exceeding 2,000.

On the 24th, National Assembly member Cha Ji-ho revealed that in the first eight months of this year, there have been 2,313 cyber attack attempts targeting the Ministry of Unification and its affiliated organizations, the North Korean Defectors Support Foundation and the Korea Institute for National Unification Cooperation.

The number of cyber attack attempts, which was only 1,255 in 2022, has sharply increased to about 200% in just over two years.

According to data submitted to Cha Ji-ho by the Ministry of Unification, there have been a total of 2,332 cyber attack attempts on the Ministry from 2020 to August 2024, while the affiliated organizations, the North Korean Defectors Support Foundation and the Korea Institute for National Unification Cooperation, experienced 1,483 and 3,974 attack attempts respectively during the same period.

Among the three institutions, the Korea Institute for National Unification Cooperation received the most cyber attacks. The number of attack attempts this year reached 1,316, which is nearly a 600% increase compared to 2020.

By type of attack, 'web hacking attempts' accounted for 1,357 cases, making up more than half of the total, followed by system information gathering (865 cases), hacking emails (72 cases), and malware (14 cases). This shows that cyber attacks, which were previously dominated by malware and hacking emails, are becoming increasingly sophisticated.

Assemblyman Cha emphasized, "With technological advancements, cyber attacks are becoming more intelligent and sophisticated, and with evasion techniques such as IP address routing, past information security systems have limitations in blocking all cyber attacks," adding, "The Ministry of Unification and its affiliated organizations, which play a critical role in national security, must develop higher levels of security capabilities."