The Defence Security Command said in a report to a security forum that every day the military counters an average of 10,450 hacking attempts and 81,700 computer virus infections in addition to other cases.

The attacks increased 20 percent this year compared to 2008, it said.

A spokesman for the command told AFP most of the attacks are the same as ordinary people experience at home, but one-tenth are serious.

"Eleven percent of the total are sophisticated and vicious attempts to hack into military servers and to gather intelligence," the spokesman said.

The command did not elaborate where the cyber attacks originated. Defence officials in Seoul have previously pointed to North Korea and China, which they say run elite hacker units.

Yoo Ho-Jin, an official of the National Intelligence Service, said his agency recently proposed that the president name an aide to deal with cyber-security.

"Our country continues to be vulnerable. Some of our government branches failed to function when we recently simulated a cyber-attack on them," Yoo told a security forum on Tuesday, according to Yonhap news agency.

"This is a grave threat to our national security."

South Korea and the United States in April agreed to cooperate to defend their defence networks from countries including China and North Korea.

Last year South Korean Prime Minister Han Seung-Soo warned his cabinet against what he called attempts by Chinese and North Korean computer hackers to obtain state secrets.

earlier related report
SKorea leader says won't accept nuclear North
South Korean President Lee Myung-Bak vowed Wednesday never to accept a nuclear-armed North Korea, while saying he hoped for an eventual reunification of the divided peninsula.

Lee was in Washington, where he met a day earlier with President Barack Obama, who joined him in calling on the communist North to cease a string of provocations, including a nuclear test.

"Under no circumstances will we allow North Korea to possess nuclear weapons," Lee said as he received an honorary degree at the George Washington University.

"North Korea must fully give up its nuclear ambitions and become a member of the international community. It must understand that that is in its best interest."

But the conservative leader said that he sought peace and hoped for "meaningful dialogue" with the North.

"Korea is the only country that is still divided. We will one day achieve unification, but until that happens it is important to maintain peaceful relations with our neighbor to the north," Lee said.

Pyongyang despises Lee, whom it routinely describes as a "traitor," and lashed out at him for appealing to Obama to guarantee South Korea's protection under the US nuclear umbrella.

The North insists that its "Korean bomb" will guarantee security in the divided peninsula. But the United States refuses to recognize Pyongyang as a nuclear weapons power.

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