A special prosecutor team raided the National Police Agency on Wednesday, seizing computer files for an investigation into a cyber attack on the state election watchdog’s website during the mayoral by-elections in October.

According to the team, the raid on the police was to determine whether officers investigating the distributed denial of service attack on the National Election Commission webpage attempted to cover up the incident.

“We conducted the raid to download computer files in order to conduct a basic investigation into the allegations,” said someone familiar with the case.

“The special prosecutor team has a suspect. They are investigating allegations that the police had covered up the incident,” said the official whose name was undisclosed to the media.

The team also conducted raids on the server farms of the NEC, KT, and LG Uplus on March 28.

Prosecutors in January concluded that a former aide to former ruling party member Rep. Choi Gu-sik colluded with a former secretary to parliamentary speaker Park Hee-tae to lead the DDoS attack on Oct. 26. The attack was allegedly to make it difficult for voters to find polling stations. A low turnout was regarded as favorable for the ruling party’s candidate for Seoul mayor.



By Robert Lee
(robert@heraldcorp.com)