2009/03/10 By Jang, Dong-joon, Kim, In-soon
Interne attack has caused unprecedented incident in which on line civil service of public agencies suspended for 5 days before restoration. On March 4, the home page of Game Rating Board was attacked by DDoS and became inaccessible at 5:40 P.M.
The home page was restored in the early morning on March 9, but access was on and off until late afternoon.
The incident was the first case for the public agency to be inflicted serious damage from DDoS.
Cho, Chang-sub, the head of Igloo Security Comprehensive Security Control Center said, “I’ve never seen disruption of such long time on civil services due to DDoS attack on agency.”
With access to home page impossible, civil services like game rating application and result check were stopped, causing problem to game industry businesses.
In order to service games in Korea, screening by the board, whether be online game or mobile game, is a must.
An insider of a game company said, “We tried to apply for game screening on line, but had to postpone because of problem in access.
In game service, time is money, so that caused problem.”
The board analyzed, “We couldn’t know where the attack came from.
We asked police for investigation.
For now, it is highly likely that those who have grudge against administrative order might commit this.”
The board closed down 29 automatic hunting program distribution sites for giving bad effect on online game after it blocked unrated online game service.
The GRB said, “We have taken measures to fill the work vacuum by receiving application offline temporally.
But if DDoS attack continues, whether online civil services could normally function or not is concern.”
The National Cyber Security Center‘s insider said, “Recent DDoS attacks were on sites where financial benefit will create like bank and game sites.
But this case is unique, and like attack on VANK (Voluntary Agency Network of Korea) for Dok-do islet controversy, it is like revenge.”