Senior cyber security officials of South Korea and the U.S. held talks in Seoul on Tuesday and agreed to explore ways to cooperate and respond to North Korea's extortion of information and technology related to missiles and nuclear weapons.

According to the foreign ministry, its ambassador for international security Cho Hyeon-woo met with U.S. Ambassador at Large for Cyberspace and Digital Policy Nathaniel Fick on Tuesday morning and discussed strengthening cyber security cooperation.

The meeting comes two months after the allies held their cyber policy consultation meeting in Washington in December.

The two sides shared the concern that North Korea's cryptocurrency theft through illegal cyber activities and its nuclear and missile-related information and technology extortion posed a grave threat to the two countries' national security as well as global security.

They agreed to continue to explore concrete response measures and also step up deterrence and preemptive defense capabilities against the regime's cyber threats.