Skip to content
Surprising Science —

The Price of Superfast Internet: Botnets, Hacking…

One of the world’s most wired countries, South Korea, illustrates the downside of high speed internet and real name verification–an epidemic of hacking, data theft and botnets.
Sign up for the Smarter Faster newsletter
A weekly newsletter featuring the biggest ideas from the smartest people

What’s the Latest Development?

One of the planet’s most connected countries, South Korea, is also plagued by hacking and data theft and is the Asia-Pacific’s leading host of P2P “botnets”–compromised, internet-connected computers typically used for illegal activities. Lightning-fast broadband and obligatory real name verification have a downside.

What’s the Big Idea?

The National Police Agency’s Cyber Terror Response Center is the frontline in South Korea’s growing struggle against computer and internet-related crime. A series of high-profile attacks this year have thrust cybercrime squarely into the public spotlight. Most attacks against Korean firms appear to originate in China, according to the center’s investigation director, Jung Suk-hwa.

Sign up for the Smarter Faster newsletter
A weekly newsletter featuring the biggest ideas from the smartest people
Related
Up Next