(Seoul = Yonhap News) Reporters Han Ji-hoon, Chae Sae-rom, and Lee Do-heun = Presidents of major commercial banks appeared on the witness stand at the National Assembly and repeatedly bowed their heads in relation to the hacking incident in the financial sector.
Lee Hwan-joo, KB Kookmin, Jeong Sang-hyuk, Shinhan, Lee Ho-seong, Hana, Jeong Jin-wan, Woori, and Kang Tae-young, presidents of NH Nonghyup Bank, appeared as witnesses at the Financial Supervisory Service's audit of the National Assembly's Political Affairs Committee on the afternoon of the 19th and apologized to the public regarding customer damage.
CEO Jeong Sang-hyuk said, “I feel sorry” for People Power Party lawmaker Kim Jae-seop’s point that “a very large amount of customer information was leaked due to a hacking incident.”
In response to criticism from Rep. Jeon Hyun-hee of the Democratic Party of Korea, who said, "The damage is first, but the security budget is last," he said, "I feel sorry. I think there were many shortcomings," and promised, "I will invest in information protection at a level that the public can accept."
President Lee Hwan-joo said, “This incident occurred at a financial institution that should be based on trust,” and added, “We sincerely apologize for causing concern to our customers and the public.”
He continued, "We will do our best to secure sufficient budget and manpower to prevent recurrence, and to respond to artificial intelligence (AI) hacking with an AI security system."
He expressed the difficulty of responding, saying, “We are receiving about 50,000 hacking attacks every day.”
At the same time, in response to Democratic Party lawmaker Kim Yong-man's point that "the first hacker intruded into was KB Kookmin Bank," he bowed, saying, "I am very disappointed that we were not able to quickly block and respond."
President Lee also responded to the suspicion that 'there was a report that an information protection executive ordered the deletion and concealment of logs during a meeting of three related departments on the morning of September 30th', saying, "I never ordered it, and I did not receive a report."
President Lee Ho-seong said, "We are very sorry and sorry for causing concern to our customers and citizens. Going forward, we will expand more budget and manpower to equip an AI system and make efforts to prevent damage from recurring by preparing for AI hacking."
Regarding damage compensation, he added, "We have already waived fees and will prevent secondary damage through financial security insurance, etc." and added, "There has been no damage (related to information leakage) so far, but if damage occurs, we promise to compensate for the entire amount."
The presidents of Woori Bank and NH Nonghyup Bank, which suffered hacking attacks but had no information leaks, also emphasized that they would establish a more thorough security system.
President Jeong Jin-wan said, "I think it's just luck that we didn't suffer any hacking damage this time. Since there are more than 200 hacking attacks a day, our employees are responding, but they may be a little inadequate."
He said, “We will do our best to prevent any damage by maintaining a security system like the Financial Supervisory Service and the Financial Security Service in the future.”
President Kang Tae-young said, “We will continue to upgrade the next-generation integrated control system established in 2022 and do our best to manage it thoroughly.”
At the National Assembly inspection on this day, it was pointed out that some banks had reduced the preferential interest rate by a greater extent by lowering the additional interest rate after the revised Banking Act went into effect in July of this year.
According to data submitted to the Financial Services Commission by Democratic Party lawmaker Min Byeong-deok, KB Kookmin Bank reduced the additional interest rate from 3.42%p in June to 3.34%p in August and also reduced the preferential interest rate from 1.96%p to 1.65%p. NH Nonghyup Bank reduced the additional interest rate from 3.60%p to 3.34%p during the same period and also reduced the preferential interest rate from 2.19%p to 1.58%p.
Representative Min pointed out, “By lowering the additional interest rate and reducing the preferential interest rate, the bank’s share has actually increased,” and “It goes against the purpose of the revision of the Banking Act and deceived (the public).”
Representative Yoo Dong-soo of the same party, chairman of the Political Affairs Committee, also criticized him, asking, “Does this mean that you will suck blood from the people?”
In response, President Lee Hwan-ju and President Kang Tae-young responded, “We fully understand the concerns related to the additional interest rate,” and “We will report detailed data.”
Orders to improve corporate governance continued for the five major bank presidents whose terms of office had not yet expired at the end of the year.
Democratic Party lawmaker Park Hong-bae, referring to the Financial Supervisory Service's special inspection report on corporate governance, criticized, "In one word, it can be summarized as self-reappointment, self-compensation, inner circle, trench building, and their own league."
In relation to this, when Democratic Party lawmaker Lee Kang-il asked, ‘Is there anyone who thinks performance is the most important thing in reappointing a bank president?’ among the five major bank presidents, President Jeong Sang-hyeok was the only one to raise his hand.
Then, when asked, ‘Is this internal management?’, Lee Ho-seong and Jeong Jin-wan raised their hands together.
Rep. Lee emphasized, "The market knows that the intention of the (financial holding company) chairman is the most important," and added, "The board of directors should decide on the CEO's appointment after comprehensively examining capabilities such as performance and internal control, not based on the influence of the chairman."
President Jeong Sang-hyeok responded to Social Democratic Party lawmaker Chang-min Han's question by saying, "A president who cannot even protect customer information is not qualified to discuss reappointment," saying, "I haven't thought about that right now."
President Jeong added, “We are focusing on relieving damage and taking measures to prevent recurrence,” adding, “That part is very urgent right now.”
