NORTH KOREA STEALS SECRET WAR PLANS.

Plan to kill Kim believed among the documents

SEOUL, KOREA • A South Korean lawmaker said Tuesday that North Korean hackers may have stolen highly classified military documents that include joint American-South Korean wartime contingency plans against the North.

One of the plans included the South Korean military’s plan to remove the North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, referred to as a “decapitation” plan, should war break out on the Korean Peninsula, Rhee Cheol-hee, a lawmaker for the ruling Democratic Party, told reporters.

Rhee, who serves on the defence committee of the National Assembly, said he only recently learned of the scale of the North Korean hacking attack, which was first discovered in September 2016.

It was not known whether any of the military’s top secrets were leaked, although Rhee said that nearly 300 lower-classification confidential documents were stolen. The military is still unable to catalogue nearly 80 per cent of the 235 gigabytes of leaked data, he said. Defence Ministry officials did not respond to attempts Tuesday to confirm the report.

If confirmed, such a hack would be a major blow for South Korea at a time when its relations with North Korea are at a low point. The South has taken an increasingly aggressive stance toward the North’s belligerence amid back-and-forth threats of war between North Korea and U.S. President Donald Trump.

Among the classified plans allegedly stolen from the South were said to be blueprints for targeted attacks by Seoul and Washington to eliminate Kim if a crisis breaks out or appears imminent. Kim is the third generation of his family to rule North Korea.

South Korean intelligence officials told lawmakers in June that Kim was desperate to get hold of South Korea’s decapitation plan. He had also begun using his deputies’ cars as decoys to move from place to place, they said.

The South’s Yonhap news agency quoted Rhee as saying that 235 gigabytes of military documents were taken. While nearly 80 per cent of the documents had not yet been identified, they reportedly included contingency plans for South Korean special forces and information on military facilities and power plants, it said.

Yonhap said South Korean defence officials said in May that North Korea may have hacked a crucial South Korean military online network but didn’t say what was stolen. Some South Korean news media, citing anonymous sources, had earlier reported that the leaked data included wartime contingency plans. But Rhee is the first member of the parliamentary oversight committee to disclose similar details.