S Korea's intelligence agency says cyber attacks preplanned by group of people

SEOUL, July 8 (Xinhua) -- South Korea's national intelligence agency said Wednesday that the hacker attacks on the web sites of government agencies earlier in the day appear to have been "elaborately planned" by a group of people.

South Korea's national intelligence agency said Wednesday that the  hacker attacks on the web sites of government agencies earlier in  the day appear to have been "elaborately planned" by a group of people.

According to a statement by the National Intelligence Service (NIS), the attacks seem to be conducted by "a certain organization or state," rather than one individual.

The so-called distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, which shut down the official websites of several government agencies, including the presidential office, and some private firms, involved some 20,000 personal computers both in and out of South Korea, the NIS said.

As of Wednesday afternoon, no classified information of the South Korean government has been retrieved, according to the NIS.

South Korean organizations to have been affected by the attacks include the presidential office, the National Assembly, the Ministry of National Defense and some public firms such as Shinhan Bank.