“There have already been 70,000 attempts to hack the National Tax Service this year… 2.8 times the number over the past five years.”

External hacking attempts targeting the National Tax Service exceeded 70,000 as of September this year. This is nearly three times the total of the last five years.

The National Tax Service's position is that there has never been a breach, but it is pointed out that even once it is breached, it can lead to great damage, so all precautions must be taken.

According to data received from the National Tax Service by People Power Party lawmaker Lee Jong-wook, a member of the National Assembly's Finance and Economic Planning Committee on the 13th, there were 73,283 external hacking attempts targeting the National Tax Service from January to September of this year.

It is 2.8 times the total over the five years from 2021 to 2025 (26,460 cases), and has exploded by 7.6 times compared to last year (9,643 cases).

By year, there were 4,849 cases in 2021, 4,227 cases in 2022, 3,053 cases in 2023, and 4,688 cases in 2024.

By type, from January to September of this year, 'information leak attempts' were the most common with 33,673 cases (46.0%). It is more than 10 times more than last year (3,228 cases).

This was followed by information collection (11,730 cases), website modification (8,431 cases), acquisition of system permissions (7,709 cases), and denial of service (DDoS, 5,547 cases).

Based on the access IP from January to September of this year, there were 42,326 domestic hacking attempts and 30,957 overseas attempts.

Among foreign countries, the United States accounted for 12,980 cases (41.9%) and Vietnam accounted for 3,472 cases (11.2%). Two countries account for more than half of overseas hacking attempts.

The National Tax Service said, “There have been cyber attacks and hacking attempts, but there have been no cases of infringement.”

With the recent series of hacking incidents in the financial sector, some point out that we should not sit idly by and watch the rapid increase in attacks.

As personal information leaks were confirmed in commercial banks, savings banks, and capital companies, including Shinhan Bank and KB Kookmin Bank, financial authorities held an emergency inspection meeting on the 4th.

Rep. Lee Jong-wook pointed out, "The National Tax Service, where sensitive information such as people's income and property is concentrated, should not evade responsibility by saying 'there have been no cases of infringement.'"

He then emphasized, “As even a single breach can lead to enormous damage to the public, we must thoroughly analyze the causes of the rapid increase in hacking attempts, check for security vulnerabilities, and strengthen the real-time detection and blocking system.”