Report: North Korea attempting cyberattacks through malware-infected games

Malware-infected video games being offered in South Korea may have originated in North Korea as software developed for the purpose of launching cyberattacks on the South, reports Airang.

The Korean National Police Agency warned South Korean citizens not to download certain “uncertified” free online games, saying that they contain malware that could allow North Korean individuals to take over a user’s computer. With a network of computers controlled through the malware, the North could harvest IP addresses and location data, and then use the infected computers to carry out distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks.

The reports sound similar to an operation that South Korean authorities snuffed out in June 2012. At the time, the North employed this tactic to infect as many as 100,000 computers in the South that it used for a DDoS attack on the website of Incheon International Airport, the country’s largest.