The national budget to protect defense systems against cyber attacks has been increased for next year amid increasing threats, the defense ministry said Tuesday.

The ministry said in a statement that the budget allocated for defending defense information for next year has been pegged at 25.8 billion won ($22.4 million), an increase of 8.6 percent from this year.

It said 15 billion won will be spent to establish security control systems and protection against electronic documents, and 10.5 billion won will be earmarked to acquire password protection devices.

The rest will be spent to provide full, four-year scholarships for students in the cyber defense program at Korea University in Seoul. In June, the Army reached an agreement with the school to train and nurture personnel to handle cyber warfare.

“This year, there have been major cyber attacks against civilian institutes, such as Nonghyup and Hyundai Capital,” the ministry said, referring to major local financial companies that have been hacked this year. In recent years, North Korea has been accused of hacking into key government and portal Web sites in South Korea.

“We will continue to expand our spending in accordance with global defense against cyber terrorism,” the ministry added.

(Yonhap News)