State researchers believe that North Korea has dispatched about one thousand information technology personnel to China and Southeast Asia who are capable of engaging in cyber attacks against the South.
 
At an anti-cyber terrorism forum in Seoul on Tuesday, the National Intelligence Service’s (NIS) Institute for National Security Strategy (INSS) and the National Security Research Institute (NSRI) released an assessment of North Korean cyber terrorism capabilities.
 
NSRI researcher Kim In-joong said in his report that the North Korean IT workers, who develop software and operate gambling sites in China, Malaysia and Cambodia, are prepared to engage in cyber attacks if word comes down from Pyongyang.
 
The researcher also accused the North of trying to instigate social disorder and confusion, citing increased hacking attempts against South Korea's liquefied natural gas (LNG) distribution, subway and railway control systems and nuclear power plants.
 
The institutes believe that North Korea manages about 17-hundred professional hackers arranged in seven groups under its military and Workers' Party. Another 42-hundred people in 13 groups are suspected of working as support forces.