South Korea's presidential transition team on Thursday reversed an earlier announcement that North Korea is suspected of hacking attacks on it, blaming miscommunication for the reversal.

"We were told by security authorities this morning to pay more attention to (computer) security as the Internet network of the press room is vulnerable to outside hacking forces," a committee official said. "It is not confirmed whether there have been hacking attempts by North Korea."

The official said there was a little "misunderstanding" in the course of advising reporters of Internet security risks because North Korea has a track record of hacking attempts.

Earlier in the day, another committee official said that intelligence authorities conducted a security checkup on the committee and found signs that North Korea may have attempted hacking attacks on the computer server handling the Internet for the press room.

The official asked reporters to run antivirus programs and change passwords more often.

North Korea has been accused of a series of hacking attacks on South Korea in recent years.

On Wednesday, the National Police Agency said Pyongyang was behind last year's cyber attack on the JoongAng Ilbo newspaper, saying the hacking method and Internet protocol (IP) addresses used for the attack were either similar or identical to those used by the North in previous attacks.

A picture of a white cat grinning and covering its mouth was posted on the Web site of the JoongAng Ilbo on June 9, 2012, the NPA said. Beneath the picture were the words, "Hacked by IsOne," with complicated codes written in green.

The main server of the firm's cyber system was also attacked and substantial data were destroyed from the production system of the newspaper, the NPA added.

Police determined Pyongyang was the perpetrator after analyzing access records of the hacked system, malicious codes, the IP addresses of two local servers and 17 servers spread throughout 10 different countries.