The South Korean military will ban the use of USB flash drives in an attempt
to thwart increasing cyber attacks, officials at the Ministry of National
Defense (MND) said Jan. 12.
The move comes after part of a South Korea-U.S. operational plan was accessed
by a hacker through a USB thumb drive used by an officer at the Combined Forces
Command here. It also comes after the MND launched a cyber warfare command Jan.
11.
"We plan to spend 2.8 billion won [$2.5 million] this year in establishing a
new data exchange system to replace USB drives," a ministry spokesman said. "Once
the system is set up, the use of thumb drives will be banned thoroughly."
