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US, France, Taiwan and Canada reel from foreign intervention in their elections, and what makes you think Korea will be an exception? Experts ask
This is the first in a two-part series highlighting election and cyberattacks as the nation will hold National Assembly elections in April next year―ED.
By Kang Hyun-kyung
It all began with an anonymous whistleblower who uploaded a statement titled, "A Korean Chinese Tells the Truth," in an online chatroom on March 1, 2020, six weeks before the 2020 National Assembly elections.
Identifying himself as a Korean Chinese living in South Korea, the author claimed that like fellow Chinese keyboard warriors also known as "daetgeul budae" in Korean, he uploaded misinformation and fake news on several different internet websites in return for payment to influence public opinion in favor of China.
He accused China of having interfered in Korean elections held both at the national and local levels for many years through an internet opinion manipulation group consisting mostly of Han Chinese students studying in South Korea. He also claimed that China aims to put South Korea under its control to fulfill its ultimate goal of surpassing the United States as the world's No. 1 economy.
His testimony went viral on the internet, infuriating South Koreans.
In response, South Korean bloggers, social media users and other internet users teamed up on a fact-finding mission in an effort to verify what he had said was true. If it turned out to be true, they vowed to hunt down the Chinese.
As part of their cyber operations, some South Koreans shared comments containing hate speech about Chinese in several different online communities. The comments included a link, explaining it would usher them to a presidential petition calling for an end to hate speech and discrimination against Chinese and urging them to sign up to make their voices heard.
The link was fake. Instead, it led to an anti-China website, not the presidential petition site as was claimed.
Hours later, several online comments written in broken Korean were uploaded onto the websites. One of them read, "Na-neun gae-in-iyo," or "I'm an individual" in English.
South Korean internet users claimed those comments in broken Korean were concrete evidence proving that the authors were Chinese posing as South Koreans and had uploaded misinformation and fake news on social media and internet communities to manipulate public opinion in favor of a pro-China political party and their candidates, ahead of the April 15 National Assembly elections.
The online comment, "I'm an individual," topped the most searched phrase list on the nation's largest internet portal, Naver, at the time. Young internet-savvy South Koreans launched another operation to raise awareness of China's alleged interference in South Korean elections.
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Lee Ji-yong, a professor of Chinese Literature at Keimyung University in the southeastern city of Daegu, said China has approximately 30 million "paid online commentators" responsible for spreading propaganda of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) on the internet.
About half of them depend on the job for a living, according to Lee.
The Chinese online workers are called "Wumao" or the "50 Cent Army" as they get 0.50 Chinese renminbi for every post.
In South Korea, Lee claimed that Korean Chinese were mobilized to do that work.
About 700,000 Korean Chinese currently reside in South Korea mostly for work. The actual number will be much higher if undocumented Korean Chinese are included.
Lee warned of China's and other state actors' meddling in South Korean elections, stressing that the National Assembly elections to be held in April next year could be their target.
"China and North Korea are the two almost certain countries that will interfere in next year's elections," he said with confidence during a recent phone interview with The Korea Times. "I have no doubt that they will interfere in the elections to influence vote outcomes in their favor."
He said the Yoon Suk Yeol government would have already become a target as the South Korean president, who took office on May 10, 2022, has reiterated a stalwart position to strengthen the South Korea-U.S. alliance amid an intensified U.S.-China rivalry.
The ruling People Power Party and the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea on June 8 agreed to launch an inquiry into North Korea's recent cyberattacks on the National Election Commission and nepotism allegations that rocked the election board. But the two parties have yet to reach an agreement on when to start the investigation.
Chinese foreign interference in elections poses a grave threat to several different countries, particularly in the West.
Canada is the latest country reeling from the fallout of allegations that China meddled in Canadian federal elections held in 2019 and 2021 following a flurry of related media reports based on intelligence documents.
In February, The Globe and Mail detailed how China interfered in those elections based on "secret and top-secret reports" produced by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) and shared by senior government officials.
Appearing on a podcast on Feb. 27, Robert Fife, one of the two journalists who broke the exclusive story, said the CSIS documents that he viewed raised concerns about China's election interference and the targeting of Canadians through "hacking, bribery and sexual seduction."
He said the CSIS documents are secret briefs about Chinese interference operations in the 2019 and 2021 federal elections held in Canada, which Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's Liberals won.
Fife added that the documents have been shared with the Five Eyes intelligence allies. The five allies of the intelligence alliance he referred to are the United States, Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and Canada.
The Canadian journalist said the CSIS also shared the intelligence reports with France and Germany.
"I think this is largely because they are having similar problems with the Chinese interference operations in their countries and also in the electoral process," he said.
A Russian military hacker group launched a complex cyberattack on Emmanuel Macron's presidential campaign in 2017, the U.S. Department of Justice said in October 2020.
Trudeau said China attempted to meddle in the 2019 and 2021 Canadian federal elections, but its operations were unsuccessful and did not affect the election outcomes.
China denied the allegation.
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| Election workers count votes cast to elect lawmakers during the April 15 National Assembly elections in the tabulation center in Seoul's western district of Yeongdeungpo on April 15, 2020. Korea Times photo by Shim Hyun-chul |
Cybersecurity expert Choi Sang-myung, also known as Simon Choi, said South Korea is exposed to increasing risks of cyberattacks, particularly from North Korea, as the totalitarian country ratcheted up efforts for various malware and phishing attacks this year. ?
"We've experienced a lot of cyberattacks from North Korea this year alone. We were told that the North operates a phishing site, which looks like Naver, to steal the personal data of people who visit the site. Media outlets, government agencies and other institutions have been under attack from the North," he told The Korea Times.
"Their malware and phishing attacks are indiscriminate and deliberate. In the past, they targeted a limited number of people, mostly those who are in government. But these days they hack almost every Korean and Korean institution, so it's fair to say almost every South Korean is subject to cyberattacks from North Korea."
Choi, the founder of IssueMakersLab, an online group consisting of malware experts that successfully tracked the entire 7.7 DDoS attack by North Korea in 2009, explained the damaging consequences South Korea could face in the event North Korea deliberately uses the stolen information.
"The North Korean hackers can use that information to log on to South Koreans' email accounts and leave comments in internet communities, pretending to be South Koreans. With that information, they can also launch more active operations to influence South Korean voters in choosing candidates. They can run their own blogs and upload writings," he said. ?
With the stolen data, he said the North could manipulate public opinion in its favor to affect the elections.
State actors launch covert operations to influence the election outcomes of other countries in their favor. Considering this, Choi said Russia is another country that may attempt to meddle in the 2024 National Assembly elections.
South Korea's relations with Russia have deteriorated since Russia's invasion of Ukraine. South Korea sided with U.S. and its allies to support Ukraine.
Russia intervened in the 2016 U.S. presidential election by disrupting public opinion and spreading misinformation about then-Democratic Party candidate Hillary Clinton. It also hacked election boards and companies that provided election-related machines and their software to tamper with election outcomes.
The Russian military hacker group also hacked hundreds of computers used during the Opening Ceremony of the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics. The international intelligence community said the Russian hacking operation was in retaliation against the International Olympic Committee, which banned Team Russia from competing in the Winter Olympics due to doping violations.
Russia used a "false-flag" tactic to make it look like North Korea was behind the hacking attack.
Russia denied the allegation.
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| People protest against US President Donald J. Trump giving Acting Attorney General Matt Whitaker oversight of the Special Counsel investigation into Russia's meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, at Lafayette Park in Washington, DC, in this November 2018 file photo. EPA-Yonhap |
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