North Korea steals information from South Korean officials' phones

South Korea's Yonhap news agency quoted the country's intelligence agency as saying on March 8 that North Korea had stolen information from the smartphones of many South Korean officials.

North Korean soldiers stand guard on a boat on the Yalu River in the border town of Sinuiju on February 9. (Source: AFP/VNA)

According to South Korea's National Intelligence Service (NIS), North Korea hacked into the phones of dozens of senior South Korean officials between late February and early March and gained access to call records and text messages.

The NIS added that North Korean computer experts also sent text messages to South Korean officials, luring them to follow links to “malicious” software, and that one in five phones were infected, leading to the exposure of phone numbers of many other high-ranking South Korean officials.

The latest cyberattacks come amid heightened tensions on the Korean peninsula after Pyongyang recently conducted a nuclear test and launched a long-range rocket carrying a satellite into orbit, and the South Korean and US militaries are conducting their largest-ever military exercises./.

According to VIETNAM+