Seoul: South Korea is investigating a suspected cyberattack on a government database containing records of nearly 10,000 current and former diplomats, the foreign ministry said on Tuesday.
Foreign Ministry spokesperson Park Il said the system, which was used for an online education programme, is believed to have been compromised by an unidentified hacker.
While Park did not confirm the exact number of records accessed, South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency reported that highly sensitive personal information, including identification numbers, mobile phone numbers and home addresses, does not appear to have been affected.
“It appears that a significant amount of data has been leaked,” Park told reporters. He added that the government was “not ruling out any possibilities,” including the involvement of hacking groups linked to foreign countries.
According to Yonhap, the foreign ministry was alerted by another government agency in early February after suspicious activity was detected on the online education system operated by its diplomatic academy.
Following the alert, the ministry shut down the platform, which has remained offline while authorities conduct a forensic investigation into the breach.
The incident comes amid growing concerns over cybersecurity in South Korea following a series of major data breaches.
One of the most significant cases involved Coupang, the country’s largest online retailer. Last year, regulators found that a former employee had improperly accessed the personal information of nearly 34 million user accounts, affecting around two-thirds of South Korea’s population.
South Korea has also faced repeated cyber threats attributed to North Korean hackers. In recent years, Pyongyang-linked cyber groups have been accused of carrying out multiple high-profile attacks, including what has been described as the largest cryptocurrency theft in history in February last year.
Authorities have not yet identified those responsible for the latest breach, and the investigation is ongoing.
