NongHyup Bank, the banking unit of South Korean financial holding company NongHyup Financial Group Inc., said Wednesday its online and smartphone banking system was paralyzed for an unknown reason.
The bank said that an error occurred at 6:20 p.m. at its operating system located in Anseong, 77 kilometers from Seoul. The online transaction system remained malfunctioning as of 7:35 p.m.
"No hacking activities were identified behind the failure," an official from the bank said. "We are currently making efforts to normalize the system and to find out the cause."
The Ministry of Science, ICT & Future Planning also confirmed that the failure is attributable to an error at the bank's hardware system, eliminating concerns that the paralysis caused by a North Korean cyber attack. No system failures from other banks were reported.
On March 20, computer networks of the nation's key broadcasters and banks were completely paralyzed. Amid escalating tensions on the Korean Peninsula, the South Korean government on Wednesday announced that North Korea was behind the massive hacking attack.
Three South Korean banks -- Shinhan, NongHyup and Jeju -- and their insurance affiliates as well as three TV broadcasters -- KBS, MBC and YTN -- were hit by the cyber attack last month.
(Yonhap News)
