South Korean Investigators Looking Into Possible Leakage of OPLAN 5027

(From the Korea Herald)

Military intelligence officials and prosecutors are investigating whether an Army major general, recently booked on espionage charges, had leaked the Korea-U.S. combined war scenario "Operational Plan 5027."

The Defense Security Command (DSC) has been questioning the two-star general, identified only by the surname Kim, over whether he handed over the core content of the OPLAN 5027 to a spy for North Korea.

The spy, surnamed Park, was a former South Korean military intelligence official recruited by North Korea. Kim is purported to have given classified information regarding military management and operations to Park between 2005 and 2007.

Prosecutors arrested Park and an executive of a local defense firm last Thursday on charges of offering military secrets to the communist state.

"We are not yet at a stage to conclude that OPLAN 5027 has been handed over to the North. We are conducting our investigation over the possible leak of the military secrets in a variety of directions," said a DSC official on condition of anonymity.

The DSC plans to seek an arrest warrant once it finds Kim handed over the content of the war plan over to the communist country. The military is expanding its probe on the case to verify if more military officials are implicated in the alleged espionage activities.

The South Korean and U.S. militaries maintain the joint war plan in case of North Korean aggression. The plan was first drawn up in 1974 and has been revised and complemented several times.

Under the plan, if hostilities break out, the United States would deploy up to 690,000 troops, 160 vessels and 2,000 aircraft to the peninsula, in addition to the current troops stationed here, which total 28,500, to help South Korean forces remove the regime of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il and defeat his 1.19-million-strong military.

S. Korea probing N. Korea's alleged hacking into war plan

December 18, 2009

South Korea is probing suspicions that North Korean hackers extracted details of a classified joint South Korean-U.S. war plan designed to deal with possible aggression by the communist state, a defense official in Seoul said Friday.

The suspected breach occurred late last month via an Internet Protocol address registered in China, a route North Korea is believed to use when collecting computer files from foreign networks, the official at the Ministry of National Defense said.

A South Korean officer has been reprimanded after he used an unsecured portable storage device to transfer the file explaining Operational Plan 5027 to a wired computer, said the official, who requested anonymity citing the sensitivity of the issue.

"The file did not contain the nuts and bolts of the plan, but we're continuing with our probe because we haven't ruled out the possibility that other files were tampered with," he said.

OPLAN 5027, crafted jointly by South Korea and the U.S., allows for the dispatch of nearly 700,000 U.S. troops to the Korean Peninsula should a full-fledged conflict arise here.

It also sets out wartime operational guidelines for the troops of the two countries. South Korea remains technically at war with North Korea after the 1950-53 Korean War ended in a truce.

The U.S., which has 28,500 troops stationed in South Korea, is working with the ally to adopt a new plan that better accounts for instabilities in North Korea, including nuclear-related ones.

No palpable details concerning North Korea's hacking unit have come to light, but South Korea believes the North has military personnel that specialize in overseas hacking.

When the Web sites of major U.S. and South Korean government agencies sustained attacks in July, officials here pointed to North Korea as a highly likely suspect.

The attacks hastened South Korea's plan to launch a command dedicated to preparing the military for cyber warfare, which will be set up on Jan. 1.

By Sam Kim

-- Yonhap News Agency

OPLAN 5027 compromised?

N.Korea 'Hacks into S.Korea-U.S. Defense Plans'
December 18, 2009

Suspected North Korean hackers may have gained access to a war plan devised by South Korea and the U.S. in preparation for an emergency, including details of specific operational scenarios, intelligence agencies believe.

According to the January issue of the Monthly Chosun published Friday, the National Intelligence Service and the Defense Security Command in mid-November discovered that an officer with the Korea-U.S. Combined Forces Command had used an unsecured USB memory stick and in that process some contents of the plan, dubbed OPLAN 5027, contained in his PC was accessed by a hacker with a Chinese IP address.

The DSC carried out sweeping security checks after the Monthly Chosun reported in November that the military Internet network had been breached by a North Korean hacking unit, and that in the process the agency confirmed that OPLAN 5027 had been hacked.

The monthly in November reported that North Korean hackers stole information from the Chemical Accidents Response Information System built by the National Institute of Environmental Research under the Ministry of Environment after infiltrating the Third Army headquarters' computer network and using a password to access CARIS's Center for Chemical Safety Management.

OPLAN 5027 is the CFC plan formulated in preparation for a preemptive strike or provocation by North Korea. Commander of the U.S. Forces Korea Gen. Walter Sharp has recently said a new joint draft operational plan has been worked out to replace OPLAN 5027 ahead of the transfer of full operational control of Korean troops to Seoul. But one retired general pointed out that the new joint operational plan will be based on OPLAN 5027. "Our conceptual framework has been laid bare if it's true that OPLAN 5027 was leaked," he said.

Based on No. 110 Research Center under the North Korean Army General Staff's Reconnaissance Bureau, the North Korean hacking unit has an impressive staff, range of operations, technologies, and overseas branches. There is speculation that 500-600 hackers are working in North Korea, including the Ministry of State Security.

Kim Heung-kwang, a former professor at Pyongyang Computer Technology University, said, "We have information that the North Korean hacking unit will soon attack the computer network in South Korea, which could throw databases of financial institutions, the Military Manpower Administration and hospitals and other institutions into chaos."

--Chosun Ilbo

North Korea's Latest Justification for Keeping Its Nuclear Program

On Apr 22nd, Speaking at the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Commander of ROK-US Combined Forces Command (CFC) and US Forces Korea (USFK), General Sharp, stated that the US will continue to offer South Korea protection under its nuclear umbrella after the 2012 transfer of wartime operational control. General Sharp stressed to the group that “the Mutual Defense Treaty will remain effective" after the transfer, and that the US and ROK militaries, although separated after the Apr 12 transfer, will continue to operate according to one military operation plan, and not two.

On May 3rd, North Korea’s Korea Central News Agency (KCNA) released a report commenting on General Sharp’s Apr 22nd speech (KCNA headline: “US and Lee Group’s Reckless War Moves Under Fire”). The report referenced a Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland’s press statement released earlier in the day.

Accusing the U.S. and the Lee Myung-bak group of frantically kicking up rackets of confrontation with the DPRK and a war of aggression against it, getting vociferous in describing the DPRK's satellite launch for peaceful purposes as a sort of "provocation, threat and violation of a UN resolution" and the like, the statement went on: The present situation goes to clearly prove that the U.S. hostile policy towards the DPRK has not changed at all and that the Lee Myung-bak group is a group of wicked traitors and warmongers keen to impose a nuclear war disaster upon the Korean nation in collusion with outside forces. 

Now that the sinister intention of the U.S. and the south Korean puppets playing the role of a shock brigade for it has been brought to bold relief, the DPRK will go straight in the direction of bolstering up its nuclear deterrent for self-defence as it had already clarified.

The U.S. and the Lee group had better stop at once their reckless moves for a war, properly understanding who their rival is.

The timing of this report seems to be in part a response to the UN Security Council’s position that it has no intension of retracting its adoption of the presidential statement or apologize for the adoption. Further, it also appearstobe a response to the US position that it will not provide any aid to North Korea unless the North stops its provocations and return to the Six-Party Talks, that the US will only conduct direct bilateral negotiations through the Six-Party forum, and that the US will review the status of North Korea to decide whether to relist it as a state sponsor of terrorism.