South Korea on Thursday said it would double its cyber security budget and train 5,000 experts amid growing concern over its vulnerability to cyber attacks.
The science ministry in Seoul said it would coordinate an effort to train 5,000 people as cyber security experts by 2017 from the current figure of only 200 staff, reports Wall Street Journal.
The ministry didn’t provide any budget details regarding the training program.
The announcement comes a week after several South Korean government websites were attacked by unidentified hackers.
Security software company Symantec Corp. said last week that the attacks were partly the work of hacking group “Dark Seoul”.
In March, thousands of computers crashed at several South Korean TV stations and banks in an attack Seoul blames on North Korea.
South Korea has long accused the North over a series of cyber attacks in recent years.
Its Defense Minister, Kim Kwan-jin, said that the North Korean army has trained at least 3,000 “cyberwarriors” to target South Korean servers.
Seoul also believes that at least some North Korean hackers are based in China.
North Korea has denied the accusations and insisted it has been a victim of cyber attacks as well.
