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Cyber attack takes down Korean ATMs, banks

March 20, 2013

In what many are calling an act of cyber-revenge, computer screens at ATMs, banks and broadcast station offices in South Korea simultaneously went black on Wednesday afternoon, and many remained disabled seven hours later. The chief suspect in the attack — North Korea. 

A report by the Huffington Post said the cyber attack occurred days after North Korea blamed South Korea and the U.S. for an online attack that took down the country's websites for two days. Additionally, many suspect that the attack was retaliation for U.N. sanctions in the wake of a nuclear test conducted last month by North Korea.

While it appeared that no government agencies or key infrastructures were affected by the shutdown, banking and commercial activity was seriously disrupted. Broadcast production was also badly affected. North Korea had recently expressed anger about the way the children's festivals were depicted in news reports.

According to the Huffington report, a line formed at an ATM in Seoul when a Starbucks when its POS system was disabled. However, customers found that the ATM was likewise offline.

Major banks reported computer and ATM outages, but none so far has indicated that any data was stolen in the attack, however millions of personal records were compromised in previous attacks on private companies.

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