Top NK hackers infiltrate S.Korean online game companies

North Korean computer experts hired by a South Korean crime rings are earning dollars by hacking South Korean online game sites, police in Seoul said Thursday.

This is the first time for North Korean hackers to be caught making money by hacking South Korean Web sites, though they have attacked computer systems of South Korean government agencies and financial institutions.

Seoul police are expanding their investigation under the judgment that the North has instituted policies to foster computer experts to use them in cyber terrorism.

The international crime investigation division of the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency indicted Thursday six people for the production and distribution of an illegal program dubbed “auto program,” which collects popular online game items in South Korea. Nine people were also indicted without detention on the same charge and two were put on a wanted list.

According to police, the suspects set up a workshop for online game items in China’s Heilongjiang and Liaoning provinces in June 2009 and invited more than 30 North Korean computer experts to steal business secrets from South Korea’s leading online game producers and make the auto program.

The illegal program automatically runs computers to increase the levels and abilities of game characters. To create the program, the hackers stole information by planting malicious codes in game server ports and breaking down the encryption system of data packets that come and go between servers and the computers of users.

A police source said, “The skills of the hackers are so remarkable that they`ve developed the auto program by only selecting information on game items and character levels.”

The suspects sent the program to sales managers in Korea and China and the latter produced thousands of copies and sold them for 20,000 won (19 U.S. dollars) each.

By setting up additional workshops and running the auto program on hundreds of computers, they also stole game items and sold them to brokers. This way, they raked in 6.4 billion won (6 million dollars) over 18 months, which Seoul police confirmed this by tracking 13 bank accounts in South Korea.

Police said the suspects apparently gave 55 percent of the profits to the North Korean hackers.

A police source said, “Suspects said the hackers had sent 500 dollars to the North Korean authority every month,” adding, “We understand that the Chosun Neunglado trading company one of the suspects had business relations with is controlled by `Room No. 39,’ a North Korean agency that manages the funds of North Korean Workers’ Party.”

tigermask@donga.com