S. Korean university hospital hacked by N. Korea

SEOUL (Yonhap) — The computer network of a university hospital in Seoul has been hacked by North Korea and neglected for about eight months, police said Wednesday.

The National Police Agency (NPA) said the North had hacked the central control system and a manager’s computer of the hospital, whose identity was withheld, in August 2014, obtaining full control over the network.

When the police acknowledged the incident in April 2015 and informed the hospital, the hospital was not even aware of the incident, police said.

Police said it didn’t find any leakage of personal data of the patients as the North’s aim seems to be causing functional disorder rather than siphoning private information.

While probing a separate case in March, police found some leaked data from Hauri, a company that provides vaccine programs to computer servers, including ones related to the country’s Defense Ministry.

“The North seems to have found some weak points in the vaccine program Hauri provides and targeted the hospital, which uses the program,” an official from the NPA said.

Police expressed strong suspicion that the North conducted the attack on the grounds that the Internet Protocol (IP) address where the attack came from coincided with the one from Pyeongyang that launched a cyberattack on the South’s major banks and financial institutes in March 2013.

“We are still investigating on whether there are other victims attacked,” the official added.

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