Prosecutors: N. Korea hacked bank files

SEOUL, May 3 (UPI) -- The North Korean intelligence agency was behind the cyberattack on a South Korean bank's computer system last month, South Korean prosecutors said Tuesday.

Prosecutors alleged North Korea's Reconnaissance General Bureau, in charge of espionage operations against Seoul, hacked into the computer system of an agricultural cooperative, Nonghyup, and deleted files stored on the bank's servers, Yonhap reported.

Nonghyup, the National Agricultural Cooperative Federation, is a federation of agricultural cooperatives that delivers supply, processing, marketing and banking services through more than 4.000 branches.

The hackers used the laptop belonging to a Nonghyup subcontractor after turning it into a "zombie computer" for the attack, the prosecutor's office said.

"This was an unprecedented act of cyber-terror involving North Korea," Kim Young-dae, a senior prosecutor from the Seoul Central Prosecutors' Office in charge of the investigation, said during a news conference.

The office said the hacking technique used in the April 12 cyber attack of Nonghyup was similar to the process used by North Korea in cyberattacks on South Korean government and business Web sites in 2009 and also March, Yonhap reported.