Seoul: South Korea's presidential office convened an emergency meeting on Wednesday, 28 October, to respond to a series of hacking attacks on financial firms that led to customer data breaches, Yonhap News Agency reported. Song Ki-ho, vice chief of the National Security Office at Cheong Wa Dae (the Blue House), presided over the meeting and reviewed the government responses to the recent attacks, the presidential office said.

Source: Yonhap via Korean Vibe

Mirae Asset Global Investments, crypto exchange Bithumb and Daishin Securities all reported data breaches involving customer information on Wednesday following separate recent hacking attacks, Yonhap said. Officials from the Financial Services Commission, the science ministry, the personal information protection watchdog and other cybersecurity-related institutions attended the meeting, which reviewed the progress of investigations and the response measures taken in each case.

Source: Yonhap via Korean Vibe

What each firm has said

Daishin Securities said on Wednesday that the personal and credit information of 38,490 clients, including names and email addresses, had been leaked, Seoul Economic Daily reported. Bithumb confirmed the previous day that an unauthorized outside party had gained abnormal access to its internal mobile groupware system, resulting in a leak of personal information; only employee data has been exposed so far, according to sources cited by the newspaper. Mirae Asset Global Investments said it recently detected signs of abnormal access to some of its web systems through an external internet protocol (IP) address, blocked the access route and activated an emergency response system; the company said no unique identification data, sensitive information or personal credit information was leaked in its case.

Source: Seoul Economic Daily

North Korean IP addresses reported — not officially confirmed

Seoul Economic Daily further reported that signs had emerged of intrusion attempts targeting financial firms through North Korean internet protocol addresses, deepening concern about the industry's defences less than a month after AI-assisted hacking incidents hit the banking sector. That attribution has been reported by the newspaper; South Korean officials at Wednesday's meeting did not publicly confirm who was behind the attacks, and the investigations are continuing.

Source: Seoul Economic Daily (SIGNAL)

The officials at the meeting also discussed measures to prevent phishing scams using leaked personal information and to trace the routes of similar cyberattacks, and agreed to rapidly share information on future hacking attacks while maintaining close cooperation, according to Cheong Wa Dae. Song was quoted by the presidential office as saying: "I ask you to make utmost efforts to respond rapidly to hacking attacks in the financial sector and prevent secondary damage as such incidents are directly related to the public's property and financial trust."

Source: Yonhap via Korean Vibe

In a parallel incident, Japan's GMO separately confirmed that a hacker site carrying allegedly leaked customer data had been taken down, Seoul Economic Daily reported. Earlier in October, South Korea's Financial Services Commission had said hacking attacks hit 16 financial firms, banks among them, producing about 100,000 cases of leaked data, according to Unchained's account of the regulator's statement.

Source: Seoul Economic Daily; Unchained