South Korea is striving to bolster its cyber combat capabilities as North Korea continues to pose an increasing security threat with its advanced electronic warfare skills and personnel.

Seoul's Defense Ministry seeks to elevate the rank of its cyber commander to major general from the current brigadier general and increase the number of staff, a senior military official told media and also seek to drastically increase its staff doubling the current staff number of around 500.

The move comes as experts claim that South Korea has not paid due attention to cyber threats while the North has systematically nurtured thousands of electronic warfare specialists and improved cyber combat capabilities.

Pyongyang used electromagnetic waves to jam satellite traffic navigation signals in the South last month and launched a distributed denial of service attack to paralyze the banking system of the National Agricultural Cooperative Federation for several weeks in April 2011.

It is also believed to have attacked major South Korean government and business websites including Cheong Wa Dae, the National Assembly, the Ministry of National Defense, Shinhan Bank and Korea Exchange Bank.