Hackers in the employ of North Korea are believed to have stolen portions of the top secret military plans that detail how both the United States and South Korea intend to defeat North Korea and China in a Second Korean War.

South Korean media revealed the north's hackers penetrated supposedly secure U.S. and South Korean cyber security firewalls to steal unspecified portions of "OPLAN 5027." Updated every two years, this plan includes sensitive information such as troop deployment plans of the United States Forces Korea; allied tactics; strategies and key North Korean targets to be attacked first in the event of war.

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The hack was said to have occurred in September 2016 but was only now revealed. News reports claimed hackers acquired portions of the plan, but not the entire document. South Korean Minister of Defense Han Min-goo minimized the impact of the cyberattack, saying only a few portions were stolen.

American and South Korean cybersecurity experts discovered the hack after coming across a new computer virus that had infected servers at the cyber command of the Republic of Korea Armed Forces (ROKAF). Sources said the virus had infected some 2,500 military and defense computers with internet access and 700 connected to the intranet.

It's unclear if this cyberattack is separate from one that also hit ROKAF cyber command in December 2016 or is the same one.

The December cyber breach saw communist hackers steal classified information, although it wasn't exactly clear what data was accessed. An investigation showed the cyber command's intranet server was hit by malware, and found some military documents, including confidential information, were hacked.

If this recent hack was a new one, it represents a huge embarrassment for the secret cyber command, which is supposed to be immune to cyberattacks given its mission of defending ROKAF against all forms of cyber warfare.

North Korea's elite hacking unit is designated Bureau 121 and is based in the Moonshin-dong area of Pyongyang. What is known is that Bureau 121 is staffed by some of the best and brightest minds in the north's information technology industry.

Bureau 121 is believed responsible for the hack of Sony Pictures Entertainment in California in November 2014.

Tagshackers, North Korea, United States, South Korea, Second Korean War, Republic of Korea Armed Forces, cyber command, Bureau 121, Sony Pictures Entertainment