Agencies that were hit include the presidential office, the Korean parliament, the ministries of defense, foreign affairs, and unification, US forces in Korea, as well as major Korean banks, according to a report by AFP citing the Korea Communications Commission (KCC).
"Some of the sites suffered minor access problems," a KCC spokesman said.
The DDoS attack used viruses planted in “zombie” computers that were used to bombard the sites with traffic.
The KCC said that the government was working with cybersecurity agencies and others to address the problem and urged computers users to download anti-virus software.
This is the third DDoS attack against South Korean government sites in three years. The South Korean government blamed the original attack in 2009 on the North Korean telecommunications ministry; US officials reached no conclusion about the origin of that attack.