14 DAY TRIAL // An undisclosed group of hackers has managed to breach one of the computers storing evidence collected by prosecutors in the investigation of President of South Korea Park Geun-hye over bribery claims.
The Korea Times is reporting that hackers based overseas attacked the computer, but the attempt was blocked before causing any damage or getting access to any information.
There are no details regarding the region the attack was launched from, but it looks like hackers managed to compromise an email account of one of the prosecutors in an attempt to infiltrate into the network.
“The attempt was made through one of our prosecutors’ email account on Naver, Korea’s largest internet portal,” an official was quoted as saying by the aforementioned source. “It seems the hacker tried to extract information from the team’s intranet by gaining access to the prosecutor’s account and installing a malicious code in the laptop.”
Increased security after the hack
Investigators have already increased security to make sure they will be able to cope with further attacks, even though the measures they put in place originally were already extreme.
For example, computers storing information collected from the investigation do not have Internet access, while different desktops that are used for making records of statements and reports on how the case is advancing are only connecting to the web with advanced security running during the whole time.
Furthermore, the building where all these devices are located are guarded by security personnel, and access to the building is only granted based on a fingerprint recognition system with only a few individuals enrolled.
After the breach, prosecutors installed an additional anti-wiretap security system from the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office, as well as security walls on each machine to add an extra layer of protection in case of attacks.
For the moment, no hacking group has claimed the attacks, and there’s a good chance that we’ll never find out who attempted to breach these computers, but South Korean authorities are already conducting an investigation to determine whether the cybercriminals were involved in any way into the probe.