From January to August this year, there were 240,000 hacking attempts on the court computer network... 1.7 times the total last year

(Seoul = Yonhap News) Reporter Bitna Kim = There were about 240,000 hacking attempts targeting the court computer network from January to August of this year, which significantly exceeds the number of incidents for the entire year last year.

According to data submitted by the Supreme Court Court Administration on the 5th to the office of Democratic Party lawmaker Kim Dong-ah, a member of the Legislation and Judiciary Committee of the National Assembly, there were 239,145 hacking attempts detected by the court's security information and event management (SIEM) system from January to August this year.

This is 1.7 times the total number of cases last year, which was 141,528, and about 2.4 times the number during the same period last year (101,205 cases).

By month, there were the most hacking attempts in March with 48,263, followed by 39,915 in May, 34,083 in June, and 30,576 in August.

In the past, the number of monthly hacking attempts was mostly below 20,000, but this year, except for January, it exceeded 20,000 every month until August.

Approximately 100,000 hacking attempts have been made in courts every year. The number was 142,514 cases in 2021, 126,212 cases in 2022, 114,070 cases in 2023, and 98,171 cases in 2024.

Between June 2021 and January 2023, a hacking incident occurred in which the personal information of approximately 18,000 people was leaked.

However, the court's own audit conducted last year in relation to the accident showed that measures such as stern admonitions were limited to such measures.

As a result of the self-audit, departmental precautions were taken at the Information Protection Office of the National Court Administration.

At the time, three people, including the director of the Seoul High Court's Computer Information Management Bureau, were dismissed without question, and five others were severely admonished. The two retired people were classified as non-disposable.

While external hacking attempts have increased, cases of personal information leaks occurring inside the court have also increased compared to previous years.

According to data submitted by the National Court Administration to the office of Rep. Yoon Sang-hyun of the People Power Party, there were 14 cases of personal information leaks that occurred as of September this year. This is a 7-fold increase from the total of 2 cases last year.

The number of cases of court personal information leakage remained in the single digits until this year, with 2 cases in 2022, 3 cases in 2023, and 8 cases in 2024.

Most of the personal information leak cases that occurred this year were due to internal employee mistakes or system errors.

There were cases where the de-identification of the judgment was omitted or where the judge provided the debtor with the creditor's employee's personal mobile phone number.

Last month, there were two cases of AI-related leaks, such as the de-identification of the first trial verdict on former President Yoon Seok-yeol's charge of being the leader of a rebellion posted on the Seoul Central District Court website was removed using artificial intelligence (AI).