The prosecution said Sunday that they will increase the number of cyber crime investigators in an effort to fight varied types of rapidly evolving crimes on the Internet.

The Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office said they will assign an additional 25 investigators to its cyber crime investigation center, which is currently manned by only eight officials.

The center is in charge of tracking down such computer crimes as denial-of-service attacks, hacking, distribution of computer viruses, electronic commerce fraud, piracy of online copyrights and leaks of personal information.

“The assignment of more investigators to the cyber crime unit is expected to contribute greatly to dealing with crime activity on the Internet,” a prosecution official said.

South Korea has seen a rapid increase in computer crimes in recent years. According to data by the National Police Agency, the number of cyber crimes surged to 164,536 cases in 2009 from 136,819 in 2008 and 88,847 in 2007. (Yonhap News)