South Korea issued a cyber security alert Friday as 29 governmental and banking websites came under attack.
The Korea Communications Commission said the sites of the presidential Blue House, the foreign ministry, the national intelligence office, seven banks, the U.S. military forces and other institutions were hit with a "denial of service" attack. Some of them were shut down temporarily, but the commission reported no major damage.
The South Korean computer security company AhnLab said it is not clear where the attacks originated, but that they were similar to ones that have targeted South Korean sites in the past. The company is issuing free software to fix the problem.
Seoul blamed a similar attack in July of 2009 on North Korea, but U.S. officials have largely ruled out Pyongyang as the origin.
Some information for this report was provided by AP, AFP and Reuters.