(Seoul = Yonhap News) Reporter Bae Young-kyung and Kang Soo-ryun = As hacking incidents continued at Shinhan Bank and KB Kookmin Bank, financial authorities ordered banks and card companies to conduct their own security checks.
The authorities plan to quickly receive reports of self-inspection results from the industry and prepare measures to improve the system.
On the 2nd, the Financial Services Commission held an 'emergency response meeting' in the financial sector, chaired by Secretary General Shin Jin-chang, and discussed the direction of response by sharing recent information leak incidents and attack types and methods.
Secretary General Shin ordered the banking and credit card industry to conduct a security check on all computer systems exposed to the outside world.
This measure takes into account the fact that computer systems with relatively poor security, such as Shinhan Bank's service exclusively for loan originators and Kookmin Bank's mobile work support system for employees, have become targets of attacks using artificial intelligence (AI) agents.
In particular, Secretary-General Shin is said to have emphasized at the meeting that "self-inspection must be carried out thoroughly so that the public does not feel anxious."
This can be interpreted as a remark made with the intention that in order to quell social anxiety, the top priority is to quickly and specifically identify the nature and route of currently leaked information.
An official from the financial sector said, "In order to alleviate public anxiety, we must be confident that the leaked information is not information directly related to financial transactions," and added, "We emphasized self-inspection at this level."
Financial companies must identify all information technology (IT) assets and services exposed to the outside world and intensively inspect security vulnerabilities and access control status. In particular, all systems that can be accessed from the outside are subject to inspection, regardless of whether they serve customers or the type of service.
You must also minimize information exposed to the outside world and check whether there is a path to access internal information without authentication. The Financial Services Commission requested that thorough checks be conducted to ensure that the certification process is not omitted or inadequately applied during the internal information inquiry process.
In addition, threat information, such as the IP address used in the attack, attacker method, and infringement attempt details, was quickly shared with relevant agencies and financial companies to enable joint response.
Financial authorities plan to provide security vulnerability checklists to support financial companies' own security inspections and promptly report the inspection results.
Meanwhile, the Financial Services Commission, Financial Supervisory Service, and Financial Security Service recently began an on-site investigation regarding the hacking incident, and quickly shared information such as the attacker's IP and attack type with the Korea Internet & Security Agency (KISA).
In addition, we plan to manage and supervise financial companies that have suffered infringements to ensure that consumer protection and compensation for damages are implemented without disruption.
Secretary General Shin said, “We will closely monitor attempts to infringe the financial sector and cooperate closely by quickly sharing threat information,” adding, “We will thoroughly analyze the causes and attack methods of infringement incidents and quickly devise measures to improve the system.”
Shinhan Bank announced the previous day that the information of about 25,000 customers was leaked due to an unauthorized hacking incident in its specialized communications structure (code). KB Kookmin Bank also confirmed that about 100 pieces of customer information were leaked due to an external intrusion during its own inspection.
On this day, it was confirmed that Hana Bank and BNK Busan Bank also had information leaks. The Financial Supervisory Service and the Financial Security Service are currently dispatching personnel to these four banks for which information leaks were reported and are conducting on-site investigations.
