KSII TRANSACTIONS ON INTERNET AND INFORMATION SYSTEMS VOL. 10, NO. 2, Feb. 2016 857 Copyright ⓒ2016 KSII The Reality and Response of Cyber Threats to Critical Infrastructure: A Case Study of the Cyber-terror Attack on the Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power Co., Ltd. Kyung-bok Lee1 and Jong-in Lim1 1Graduate School of Information Security, Korea University Seoul, Republic of Korea [e-mail:
[email protected],
[email protected]] *Corresponding author: Jong-in Lim Received August 14, 2015; revised October 6, 2015; revised November 3, 2015; revised December 4, 2015; accepted December 20, 2015; published February 29, 2016 Abstract Due to an increasing number of cyberattacks globally, cybersecurity has become a crucial part of national security in many countries. In particular, the Digital Pearl Harbor has become a real and aggressive security threat, and is considered to be a global issue that can introduce instability to the dynamics of international security. Against this context, the cyberattacks that targeted nuclear power plants (NPPs) in the Republic of Korea triggered concerns regarding the potential effects of cyber terror on critical infrastructure protection (CIP), making it a new security threat to society. Thus, in an attempt to establish measures that strengthen CIP from a cybersecurity perspective, we perform a case study on the cyber-terror attacks that targeted the Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power Co., Ltd. In order to fully appreciate the actual effects of cyber threats on critical infrastructure (CI), and to determine the challenges faced when responding to these threats, we examine factual relationships between the cyberattacks and their responses, and we perform analyses of the characteristics of the cyberattack under consideration.