Cyberattackers have hit the US Treasury Department, Secret
Service, Federal Trade Commission and Transportation Department in
a series of attacks that started on 4 July and disrupted
operations.
South Korea's presidential Blue House, defence ministry, and
National Assembly were also attacked, according to reports from
Associated Press.
The attacks began three days after the Treasury
froze the
assets of four people it said provided direct support to al
Qaida and Lashkar-e Tayyiba (LET) in Pakistan, and facilitated
terrorist attacks, including the July 2006 train bombing in Mumbai,
India.
The US Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US CERT), part of the
US department of homeland security, warned of the attacks and
provided advice to mitigate them.
Last month the UK and US governments announced
plans to create "white hat" hacker teams to seek and destroy
cyberattackers.
"The government can no longer stand by and suffer cyberattacks
(such as infiltration via hacking and denials of service) without
hitting back," Robert Hannigan, the prime minister's security
advisor, said at the time.
The news comes after a stream of reports that cyberattackers
were trying to infiltrate or disrupt government and private sector
computer systems on both sides of the Atlantic.
Hannigan said the UK was relatively better off that the US
because it had fewer government computer systems exposed to the
internet.