New cyber attacks reported in South Korea

New cyber attacks reported in South KoreaSeoul - Government and business websites in South Korea have come under a further wave of cyber attacks, the national news agency Yonghap said on Thursday.

It is the third time that major websites have come under attack this week, with North Korea coming under suspicion for being the origin of the so-called DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attacks, which attempt to paralyze the operation of websites.

The websites of South Korea's defence ministry, foreign ministry and secret service, as well as civil sites were affected at around 6 pm (0900 GMT). The website of the US forces stationed in Korea was also reported to have been affected.

South Korean authorities issued a warning Wednesday against malicious computer software believed to have attacked about 8,000 personal computers and disabled government and private websites.

US news channel Fox reported Wednesday that an unnamed US defence official had said that the attacks were coming from North Korea. The US Defence Department, the Department of State and the New York Stock Exchange also came under the DDoS attacks.(dpa)