Korea to Fight Web Attacks from China

In an effort to combat a growing problem of identity theft, the Korean government is taking steps to prevent access to its backdoor internet pathways from abroad. Data leakage from Korea, especially to China, has become particularly troublesome, with hackers using illegal internet providers as their main means of stealing restricted information, including resident registration numbers. The Korean Ministry of Information and Communication recommends that local internet firms use different systems other than registration numbers, which function in Korea like social security numbers in the US, to sign members up for web sites. Korean officials suspect that Chinese hackers are behind the recent crime wave. Korea expects the Chinese government to delete the large amount of private information concerning Koreans in its cyberspace realm, and the ministry will institute new measures such as security patches and firewalls. The move to protect Korean internet users from Chinese cyber criminals comes at a time when international attention has focused on China’s censoring its own internet. Cyber crime flourishing in China is an unexpected corollary that might or might not be related. – YaleGlobal