Hackers are increasingly using South Korea as an entry point to attack computer systems in other countries, a serious situation that could undermine the country's image ahead of the World Cup finals, experts and industry sources said yesterday. . . .
Hackers are increasingly using South Korea as an entry point to attack computer systems in other countries, a serious situation that could undermine the country's image ahead of the World Cup finals, experts and industry sources said yesterday.

Major international studies show that a large percentage of computer attacks can be traced to Korea, suggesting that the country's cyber security system needs an urgent upgrade or overhaul.

According to New York-based Predictive Systems Inc., Pacific Rim countries were involved in 91 percent of attacks that weren't traced to the U.S., which continued to be the leading source of attacks and target for them. Korea accounted for 34 percent, followed by 29 percent for China, 10 percent for Japan and 7 percent for Taiwan.

The National Policy Agency's Cyber Center said the number of hacking incidents is rising steadily with the World Cup just around the corner.

Some foreign servers block access attempts whose origins are traced to Korea, implying that the country's leadership in the broadband Internet business may be marred by its negligence in upgrading lame security protection systems, the center said.

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