South Korean President Park Geun-hye called for a full investigation of the data breach of the country's nuclear plant operator as an anti-nuclear hacker or hackers continued to post plant data online.
While the plant says no critical data has been leaked, hackers have posted at least five sets of data in various posting since Dec. 15. The postings, which claim to be from an anti-nuclear group based in Hawaii, demand that South Korea begin to shut down its nuclear power plants, specifying that the government shut down three of the country's 23 nuclear power plants by Thursday.
A post on Twitter also offered to stop the postings in return for money, Reuters reported.
The group has also posted data on 10,000 nuclear industry workers and said residents in the vicinity of the plants it wants closed should stay away for a few months.
The timing could not have been stranger. While South Korean officials have stayed clear of claiming North Korea is behind the cyber-attacks, the incident comes on the heels of Sony Pictures pulling the comedy film “The Interview” from distribution after the company's computers were hacked with threats that theaters showing the film would be physically attacked. President Barack Obama has said that North Korea was behind those hacks, because the movie depicts an assassination attempt of its leader Kim Jong-un.
North Korea had denied the allegations about the Sony Pictures hack and threatened retaliation if Washington continued to blame it for the hacks. North Korea has also said the film, which was to be released on Christmas Day, was a propaganda film that was supported by the White House.
With that mess in the background, South Korean officials have said it was impossible for the anti-nuclear group to be able to control the nuclear power plants, which operate with a closed computer system.
Nuclear plant designer Suh Kune-yull of Seoul National University, however, has said the data breach indicates that it is possible plant safety has been or could be compromised. He said the data breach “means there is gaping hole in national security.”
The anti-nuclear hackers have posted design and operation manuals for the Gori-2 and Wolsong-1 nuclear reactors, which are run by Korea Hydro and Nuclear Power, known as KHNP.