South Korea: Cyberattacks from China Up

South Korea’s leading news agency Yonhap is reporting a sharp rise in attempted hackings originating from China.

The Foreign Ministry of the Republic of Korea (ROK) has documented a total of 8,263 cases of cyberattacks purportedly from IP addresses belonging to China (PROC), from January to July of this year.

Part of the increase correlates with the unease that Chinese citizens feel at South Korea’s partnership with the United States in installing an anti-missile system on the Korean peninsula.

The ROK and the U.S. have justified the installation by citing the expressive belligerence of North Korea, while China is wary of the American presence being a threat to their own security interests in the region.

THAAD has been an acronym of controversy in East Asia in recent years — it stands for Terminal High Altitude Area Defense. After North Korea’s recent nuclear tests — its sixth and most powerful — South Korean president Moon Jae-in publicly declared his intention to order additional THAAD batteries from the U.S.