South Korea will develop a variety of offensive and defensive cyberwarfare weapons and reinforce manpower at the military cyber command, as part of its bid to enhance preparedness against threats of cyberattacks from North Korea's military, the defense ministry said Wednesday. In a mid- to long-term defense plan reported to President Lee Myung-bak, the ministry also said that it will drastically increase the deployment of surface-to-surface ballistic missiles targeting North Korea's nuclear weapons facilities and missile bases. Seoul accused Pyongyang of interfering with GPS jamming signals on civilian flights and commercial ships operating near the nations' western border earlier this year as well as hacking government Web sites and banking systems in the last couple of years. According to Yonhap, the defense plan calls for the military to secure intelligence assets and double the number of service personnel at the Cyber Command to 1,000. The special unit was launched in January of 2010 in response to the growing threat of cyber attacks from Pyongyang.
