[geoff01]

A series of crippling attacks on websites in South Korea and the US may have originated in Britain, it has been claimed.

The attack paralysed several South Korean banking websites as well as a series of US government sites last week. Until now, investigators had blamed the cyber-warfare on North Korea.

The Korea Communications Commission said hackers in the UK may have set up the attacks, which flooded victims with an overwhelming amount of internet traffic, causing them to crash.

It said it believed that 166,000 "zombie" computers in 74 countries were infected with a virus and then controlled by hackers.

"The [British] server appears to have controlled compromised handler servers," which spread viruses, said Park Cheol-Soon, a network protection team leader of the government-run communications commission.

"However, it needs more investigation to confirm whether this server was the final attacker server or not," he added.

The information came from a Vietnamese computer security firm, Bach Khoa Internetwork Security. Vietnam is part of a regional grouping known as the Asia Pacific Computer Emergency Response Team.

Mr Park said the apparent discovery of a master server in Britain did not mean North Korea could not be held responsible. "It does not either bolster or undermine claims that someone has done the attacks," he said. Several computer experts also believe that tracing the source of the attacks may be impossible.

Most attacks have now fizzled out, said the Korean Intelligence Service, which downgraded its alert against further cyber attacks.

Telegraph.co.uk