The latest nationwide hacking attack on Korea appears to have conspired via a wide assortment of methods, including the distribution of malicious spamware and seizing data servers.

Network software at some of the hacking targets also was damaged after the culprits targeted the more vulnerable aspects of the software.

The broadcasters, for instance, suffered damages to the boot sector of their operating systems, while the databases at banks such as Shinhan and Nonghyup malfunctioned because of attacks to their authentication networks.

On Wednesday, nationwide networks became paralyzed after up to 32,000 data servers of top broadcasters and financial institutions came under cyber attacks.

The government is investigating the exact cause, with clues leading to North Korea, which has been fuming against the Park Geun-hye government’s hawkish political stance.

Experts said the fact that the attacks were simultaneous and so far-reaching indicates that the hackers had accessed the data networks in advance to secure their routes of attack.

AhnLab, the top computer anti-virus program supplier in Korea, said that “Win-Trojan/Agent.24576.JPF,” the malicious code that paralyzed the networks, appears to have gotten hold of the ID and passwords for the AhnLab Policy Center servers, which handle the software for corporate intranets.

AhnLab added, however, that it was investigating clues leading to the mastermind of the scheme.

By Kim Ji-hyun (jemmie@heraldcorp.com)