South Korea hit with mutiple hacking attacks against banks, television stations
Using a form of the 'Wiper'* virus, hackers launched an organized attack on Wednesday 2:00pm against television and banking target in South Korea. Over 30,000 computers and servers were brought down and are expected to remain down for days. North Korea is suspected of funding cells of hackers who trained in China and this attack is thought to be an exercise for these groups. The North continued its threatening posture and rhetoric without commenting on the attack. Another form of Wiper virus was used last year in Iran and wiped the contents of many computers. In that case, the malware was disguised as a legitimate Windows process.
*The wiper virus is a virus which shuts down the antimalware and antivirus on its host system, then overwrites the boot sector and attempts to reboot the system. Since the boot sector is corrupt or blank, the computer is unable to start. This type of virus was first created in the 1980's and is not popular because it has no return or gain. Only so-called 'immature' hackers use this type of virus since it is only good for causing damage.