Websites in both Koreas shut on war anniversary

One says sites hacked; what happened in other unclear

SEOUL, South Korea — Major government and media websites in South and North Korea were shut down for hours Tuesday on the 63rd anniversary of the start of the Korean War. Seoul said its sites were hacked, but it was unclear what knocked out those north of the border.

Seoul said experts were investigating attacks on the websites of the South Korean presidential Blue House and prime minister’s office, as well as some media servers. There were no reports Tuesday that sensitive military or other key infrastructure had been compromised.

The attacks in South Korea did not appear to be as serious as a March cyberattack that shut down tens of thousands of computers and servers at broadcasters and banks. Seoul alerted people to take security measures against cyberattacks.

The North Korean websites shut down Tuesday included those belonging to the national airline, Air Koryo, the Rodong Sinmun newspaper, North Korea’s official Uriminzokkiri site and Naenara, the country’s state-run Internet portal. All but Air Koryo were operational a few hours later.

South Korean National Intelligence Service officials said they were investigating what may have caused the shutdown of the North Korean websites. North Korea didn’t make any comment.

Operators of several Twitter accounts who purported to be part of a global hackers’ collective known as Anonymous claimed that they attacked North Korean websites. The Associated Press received no answer to several requests to speak to the Twitter users.

Shin Hong-soon, an official at South Korea’s science ministry in charge of online security, said the government was not able to confirm whether these hackers were linked to Tuesday’s attack on South Korean websites.

It wasn’t clear who was responsible. North and South Korea have traded accusations of cyberattacks in recent years.

South Korean officials blamed Pyongyang for a March 20 cyberattack that struck 48,000 computers and servers, hampering banks and broadcasters for several days. In that attack, television programming was not interrupted, and officials have said that no bank records or personal data were compromised.

Seoul officials said in April that an initial investigation pointed to a North Korean military-run spy agency as the culprit.