The Digital Chosunilbo (English Edition) highlights the latest news on “cyberwarfare”:

A North Korean spyware e-mail was reportedly transmitted to the computer of a colonel at a field army command via China in early August. The e-mail contained a typical program designed automatically to steal stored files if the recipient opens it. It has not been confirmed whether military secrets were leaked as a result of the hacking attempt, but their scale could be devastating given that the recipient is in charge of the South Korean military’s central nervous system — Command, Control, Communication, Computer & Information (C4I).

The background to this case is allegedly a woman wanted for stealing in North Korea defected to South Korea, then became an anti-communist speaker for the military. While on circuit she became intimately involved with military officers and sent their contact information back North Korea. Email messages with malware were then sent to the officers. The article suggests this is a sophisticated attack vector.

The Defense Ministry believes that the skills of 500 to 600 North Korean hackers are on a par with those of CIA experts. In 1999, the department said it traced frequent cyber visitors and found that North Korea topped the list.

The more the military command system of a country becomes computerized, the more it looks as though the determining factor in battle will be the ability to hack into and paralyze the enemy’s command system first. We must not be negligent in discovering and preventing the North’s increasingly persistent and shrewd hacking attacks.

The more routine aspects of the story should not be minimized. Officers in the South Korean military were clearly compromised by an attractive North Korean spy. The email attack vector is notable mainly because, as with most technology, it has introduced an incredibly low cost/return ratio. Hopefully the colonel at a field army command would know to always use secure email, just as he would practice safe sex…