Seoul’s New $210B Defense Plan Emphasizes On Cyber security, Military Spy Satellites

South Korea reserves 246.5 billion won ($218 million) from its revised mid-term defense plan on cybersecurity over five years to fight growing threats from North Korean hackers.

Part of the money will also be spent on the one-trillion-won "425 Project" to acquire five military satellites from a foreign country by 2022, in order to improve its striking capabilities to destroy key military facilities across the border, the Ministry of National Defense announced Friday.

Seoul on Friday announced a 238.2 trillion won ($210 billion) mid-term national defense blueprint that has "three-axis system" that covers the Korean Air and Missile Defense as well. 

"(We) plan to improve surveillance and striking capability on the whole region of North Korea, expand the defense ability for core facilities and develop the capability for independent, massive retaliation," Yonhap reports citing a statement by the ministry.

The South's military plans to set up the three-tier system by the early 2020s, earlier than the initially planned mid-2020s, according to the strategy reported to the National Assembly.

The military will also push for the early operation of new striking means to destroy the North's key military facilities. It's developing a missile with the range of 800km in addition to the line of shorter-range ballistic missiles and the 1,000-km-range Hyunmoo-3 cruise missile, the report adds.