S. Korea faces new round of cyber attacks

SEOUL, July 9 (UPI) -- Key South Korean governmental and private Web sites were targeted Thursday by a third round of cyber attacks, government and industry officials say.

The officials told the Yonhap News Agency the newest round of cyber attacks resulted in failures and delays of the Web sites of the defense ministry, foreign ministry, the National Assembly and the National Intelligence Service.

"A third round of cyber attacks has already begun. But it is difficult for now to estimate the exact damage to domestic Web sites," a Korea Information Security Agency official said.

"The government is working hard to minimize damage from the latest cyber attack through closer cooperation with relevant institutions and companies," the unidentified official added.

The Web sites for the Kookmin Bank and the United States Forces Korea were also temporarily disrupted as a result of the distributed denial-of-service attacks, the officials said.

Yonhap said the cyber attacks by unidentified hackers began Tuesday with a second volley of online assaults taking place Wednesday.