S.KOREA SEEKS INTL CO-OP FOR FURTHER PROBE INTO CYBER ATTACK.

SEOUL, May 4 Asia Pulse - South Korea's prosecution has sought international cooperation in investigating the origin of an Internet Protocol (IP) address used by North Korea in last month's cyber attack of a South Korean bank, officials said Wednesday.

The prosecution has asked for help from 13 countries to determine exactly which of the 27 overseas computer servers that left traces on the laptop computer used for the attack were directly involved in the attack, they said.

The 13 countries, including China, Taiwan, the United States, Brazil and Ukraine, are where the servers are located.

The banking network of the South Korean agricultural cooperative, known as Nonghyup, crashed on April 12, keeping its nearly 20 million clients from using automated teller machines and online banking services for a few days and partially crippling its credit card services for weeks.

On Tuesday, the prosecution concluded that the North's intelligence organization was responsible for the attack, saying the technique used in the hacking was similar to those used in two previous attacks by the North on South Korean Web sites.

The hackers used the laptop owned by an employee of a Nonghyup subcontractor for hacking into the bank's servers after turning it into a "zombie computer" operated remotely, according to the prosecution.

Prosecutors also said one of the 27 IP addresses that left traces on the laptop computer used for the April 12 attack was identical to one used in the distributed-denial-of-service (DDoS) attack in March this year also blamed on North Korea.

But they failed to figure out which of the addresses was directly used for the latest attack.

Wednesday's move is to determine exactly which one was involved and what role it played in the attack, the prosecutors said. They are also trying to find out whether there is an IP address that North Korea borrowed for cyber terror as well as the actual owners of the IP addresses.

But investigators have had some trouble in investigating the connection between an IP address and the North Korean authorities as China is reluctant to help in the probe.

"Among the countries, only China is uncooperative," said an official from the Supreme Prosecutors' Office in charge of the probe. "We keep trying to convince Beijing as both countries signed a memorandum of understanding on investigation cooperation."

(Yonhap) nt 04-05 2028