N. Korea believed to be behind cyber attacks

AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon

An employee of Korea Internet Security Center looks on while working at a monitoring room in Seoul, South Korea, Wednesday, July 8, 2009. South Korean intelligence authorities believe that North Korea or pro-Pyongyang forces in South Korea committed cyber

SEOUL, South Korea
--

South Korean intelligence officials believe North Korea or pro-Pyongyang forces in South Korea committed cyber attacks that paralyzed major South Korean and U.S. Web sites, a lawmaker's aide said Wednesday.

The sites of 11 South Korean organizations including the presidential Blue House and the Defense Ministry went down or had access problems since late Tuesday, according to the state-run Korea Information Security Agency. Agency spokeswoman Ahn Jeong-eun said 11 U.S. sites suffered similar problems.

On Wednesday, the National Intelligence Service told a group of South Korean lawmakers it believes that North Korea or North Korean sympathizers in the South "were behind" the attacks, according to an aide to one of the lawmakers briefed on the information.

The aide spoke on condition of anonymity citing the sensitivity of the information. He refused to allow the name of the lawmaker he works for to be published.

The National Intelligence Service - South Korea's main spy agency - said it couldn't immediately confirm the report.

Earlier Wednesday, the agency said in a statement that 12,000 computers in South Korea and 8,000 computers overseas had been infected and used for the cyber attack.

The agency said it believed the attack was "thoroughly" prepared and committed by hackers "at the level of a certain organization or state." It said it was cooperating with the American investigative authorities to examine the case.