Editor’s Note: In May 2011, the Wall Street Journal published an article titled “Pentagon: Cyber Attacks Can Count as Acts of War.” The article began, “The Pentagon has concluded that computer sabotage coming from another country can constitute an act of war, a finding that for the first time opens the door for the U.S. to respond using traditional military force.”
Broadcasters and banks in South Korea were virtually shut down on Wednesday due to a massive computer attack.
Government officials said the same “malicious code” was behind the attacks. Two banks and three television stations all had their computer networks shut down at the same time Wednesday afternoon.
The television stations continued to broadcast but none of their computers were able to be restarted. All the systems showed the same error message with some computers having images of skulls popping up at various times.
The Korean Internet Security Agency said the codes and skulls indicate code was installed on the systems and this was not a cyberattack but a planned act of terrorism. The Defense Ministry said it was too early to definitively say North Korea was behind the attack but they were not going to “rule out” the likelihood it was North Korea.
North Korea has stepped up their hostility in recent days in response to new UN sanctions.
