Hackers used IP address in 5 nations: ROK

SEOUL: The Republic of Korea (ROK) said on Friday it had identified and blocked five IP addresses used to distribute computer viruses that caused a wave of website outages in the US and the ROK.

ROK and American officials have said they believe the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) was behind the attacks, but none of the blocked Internet Protocol addresses - the Web equivalent of a street address or phone number - were for computers in the DPRK.

The addresses point to the computers that distributed the virus that triggered so-called denial of service attacks in which floods of computers try to connect to a single site at the same time, overwhelming the server. They were in Austria, Georgia, Germany, the ROK and the US, an official from the state-run Korea Communications Commission said. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the media on the record.