The Defense Ministry is seeking to put its cyberwarfare operations under the control of the Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman in a bid to broaden the scope of the operations to include full-scale wartime procedures.

The decision comes as the ministry is struggling to shore up public trust in its cyberwarfare command, which has come under fire for political interference amid North Korea’s escalating security challenges in the increasingly militarized cyberdomain.

“We are working on a legal revision to allow the JCS chairman to control the cyberwarfare command in order to ensure its political neutrality and more actively respond to the threats in cyberspace,” Wee Yong-sub, chief of the ministry’s Public Information Division, told reporters.

“We will take measures to allow (the cyberwarfare unit) to carry out military operations while enhancing public trust.”

The cyberwarfare command has so far focused on conducting psychological warfare against North Korea, which has carried out anti-South Korea cyberoperations with a slew of online postings denouncing the Seoul government and conservative politicians.

But the military command has faltered under the criticism that it has meddled in political affairs by posting online comments during the 2012 presidential election, which might have worked against opposition party candidates.

With the JSC chief, the country’s top military operations commander, talking charge of the cyberoperations, the Defense Ministry believes that apolitical, strategic operations in the cyberdomain would be carried out effectively.

Amid public distrust of the disgraced cyberwarfare unit, experts have expressed concerns that its operations could be undermined despite Pyongyang’s stepped-up efforts to bolster its cybercapabilities.

The North has focused on developing asymmetric military capabilities including cyberwarfare capabilities recognizing that it cannot win in a conventional war against its more affluent, well-equipped adversaries: South Korea and the U.S.

The North is known to have established a strategic cyberwarfare unit in August 2012 under the direction of its leader Kim Jong-un. It is estimated to have nearly 6,000 cyberwarfare troops, most of whom work for a series of cybersecurity units under the General Bureau of Reconnaissance, the North’s premier military intelligence agency.

Seoul established its cyberwarfare unit, headed by a one-star general, in 2010 following a series of cyberattacks from the North, which denies responsibility. In corps and higher-level units of each armed service, it also runs the Computer Emergency Response Team to handle any cyberintrusions.

The U.S. set up its cyberwarfare unit in May 2010 with some 80,000 personnel and reportedly plans to add 8,600 personnel by 2016. This year, Japan founded its own cyberoperations unit.

By Song Sang-ho (sshluck@heraldcorp.com)