Seongyoon Lee “We must thoroughly examine who is responsible and whether the disposition is appropriate.”

Seongyoon Lee “We must thoroughly examine who is responsible and whether the disposition is appropriate.”

(Seoul = Yonhap News) Reporter Choi Joo-seong = The court conducted its own audit last year into the hacking incident that resulted in the personal information of about 18,000 people being leaked, but it was pointed out that the punishment was limited to a 'soft punishment.'

According to data submitted by the Supreme Court on the 11th to the office of Representative Lee Seong-yoon of the Democratic Party of Korea, a member of the Legislation and Judiciary Committee of the National Assembly, the Supreme Court conducted a self-audit last year following the leak of personal information from the court computer network that occurred from June 2021 to January 2023, and took measures such as one case of departmentalism, five people being severely admonished, and two people not being disposed of.

The size of the leak, which was confirmed through an investigation by the National Police Agency at the time, was 1,014 gigabytes, and the personal information of 17,998 people, including names, resident registration numbers, dates of birth, and contact information, was found to have been leaked.

Even though the Supreme Court detected the malicious code in February 2023, it did not initiate follow-up procedures, and when the leak became known through media reports in November of the same year, it belatedly began an official investigation and was criticized for a 'delayed response'.

Afterwards, the court conducted an audit of the Judicial Information Technology Office of the National Court Administration from March to October of last year to determine responsibility and prepare improvement measures based on the results of the Personal Information Protection Committee deliberation.

As a result of the audit, it was stated, "It is judged to have occurred due to a lack of information protection management system throughout the court. In order to prevent recurrence of infringement incidents, we must strengthen technical and managerial measures, such as systematically recording the cause and response process of this incident."

The court explained that it has also taken measures to strengthen personal information protection, such as carrying out a project to build a security operating system.

However, Rep. Lee pointed out that even though the Supreme Court itself acknowledged the shortcomings of the management system, there was a lack of action taken by those responsible.

Rep. Lee said, "As this is a serious accident that failed to protect the people's sensitive trial information, we must thoroughly examine who was responsible and whether the disposition was appropriate." He added, "The Supreme Court must transparently reveal to the public the cause of the accident and the basis for action for each person responsible."