North Korea has been blamed for yet another cyber raid across the 38th parallel, this time attempting to hack the emails of 90 South Korean diplomats, security officials and journalists.
The Supreme Prosecutors' Office claimed that hackers tried to compromise the accounts of officials and journalists working at the ministries of foreign affairs, defense and unification, as well as some researchers specializing in North Korea.
It’s unclear how many of these spearphishing attacks were successful in capturing state secrets, although Yonhap reported that 56 passwords were compromised in the campaign, which ran from January to June this year.
Pyongyang has been blamed as the attack apparently bears all the hallmarks of a previous cyber raid back in 2014.
The authorities have now shut down 27 phishing sites set up as part of the attacks, which experts believe were carried out by specialists at the North's intelligence agency the General Bureau of Reconnaissance (GBR).
Students that show an aptitude for technology are selected at an early age and sent to Geumseong Middle School in Pyongyang for hacking lessons before going on to university where they learn more of the dark arts of cyberwarfare, according to the report.
The revelations come just days after it emerged that North Korean hackers stole personal information on 10 million shoppers after compromising a popular e-commerce site.
Its owners, Interpark, claimed the incident occurred back in May, with the perpetrator demanding Bitcoin as a ransom.
Threat actors from across the border were blamed as they apparently used North Korean slang in emails to the site’s owners, as well as IP addresses and code traced back to the hermit kingdom in other campaigns.
Tensions are always high on the peninsula, but especially recently given Pyongyang’s long-range missile and nuclear tests earlier this year.
In June it was revealed that the totalitarian state hacked 140,000 computers belonging to 160 South Korean companies and government organizations in an attempt to steal sensitive documents and potentially prepare the ground for a terror attack.