Seoul prosecutors have launched an investigation into a leak of non-critical data at South Korea's nuclear power operator, the prosecutors' office said on Sunday, as worries mount about nuclear safety and potential cyberattacks from North Korea.
An official with the prosecutors' office confirmed media reports that they had traced the location of an IP address linked to the leak and had dispatched investigators to the site, CNN reported.
She said she could not comment further on the case while an investigation was under way, including on whether North Korea might be behind the leak.
Diagrams of several of South Korea's 23 nuclear reactors have been posted on a Twitter account since the data leak last week, which included employees' personal records, blueprints of nuclear plant equipment, electricity flow charts and estimates of radiation exposure among local residents. There was no evidence, however, that the nuclear control systems were hacked.
Korea Hydro and Nuclear Power Co Ltd (KHNP), operator of the nuclear plants and part of state-run utility Korea Electric Power Corp, said it had stepped up its monitoring and was on a heightened level of alert for cyberattacks.
