Hacking, Increased by 185% Compared to Last Year

The Ministry of Information and Communication clarified that the number of the hacking cases occurred last year within Korea totals 15,192 cases, which is an increase of 185% compared to the 2001 figure. Contrarily, the number of the virus infection cases has been reduced by 40%, totaling 38,677 cases.

The Ministry analyzed that the reason for this rapid increase in the number of the hacking incidents are due to the occurrence of 5537 spam mail delivery hackings by the server environment set up errors at the elementary, middle and high schools in last year`s May.

After investigating the victimized computers, it resulted that the individual and the PC room victims reached 58% of all victims, thus shows the fragility of the individual users.

Also, it has been discovered that majority number of hackings which often come and go through the national boundaries, have been using Korea as their bypass location due to Korea`s well structured infra.

On the other side, it is analyzed that the reason why the cases of the virus infection has been decreased is because the large scale harmful new type viruses, such as Funlove in 2000, Nimda and CodeRed in 2001, did not appear in last year. Nevertheless, the overall virus victims have been decreased but Klez, having the various attacking techniques has been very active. Also, Nimda and Funlove, which are slowing down in foreign countries, are still causing problems continuously here in Korea.

Jong sik Kong kong@donga.com