▲ Bithumb (from top), Daeshin Securities, Mirae Asset Global Investments
Financial investment firms, including securities companies, which had remained relatively untouched when a series of hacking incidents hit banks and other financial institutions earlier this month, have ultimately been breached as well.
According to the financial investment industry on October 28, information leak incidents caused by hacking were identified at Daeshin Securities and Mirae Asset Global Investments.
Daeshin Securities issued a press release on the same day, stating, "As a result of an internal investigation, we have found that the information of a total of 38,490 individuals has been leaked so far, and we are preparing protective measures and recurrence prevention plans for the affected customers."
The company stated that the leak came to light after abnormal access attempts by hackers were detected on October 17 against the server linked to non-face-to-face securities account opening for discretionary investment management.
While external attacks failed to reach the core database storing transaction details at Daeshin Securities' data center, they reportedly entered the application programming interface (API) where personal information and other data were stored, extracting names and IDs from there.
The confirmed scope of the leak covers eight categories in total: customer names, email addresses, home addresses, communication IDs, bank names, deposit/withdrawal account numbers (encrypted), Daeshin Securities general account numbers (encrypted), and mobile phone numbers (encrypted).
On the same day, Mirae Asset Global Investments also announced, "As soon as we detected abnormal access attempts from external IPs in some web systems recently, we blocked the relevant access paths and activated an emergency response system."
However, it added that the scope of the leak caused by this incident was limited to information using certain operational systems, and that there were no leaks of unique identification information such as resident registration numbers, passport numbers, driver's license numbers, or alien registration numbers, nor of sensitive information or personal credit information.
An official from Mirae Asset Global Investments explained, "There is no financial damage, and no signs of direct penetration into servers or databases have been confirmed," adding, "Major systems and services, including the company website, are operating normally without impact."
It was confirmed that there had been a hacking attempt against Koscom, which builds and operates core IT systems for the capital market and financial investment industry, but it was unsuccessful.
Because Koscom provides its ledger management system, PowerBASE, to securities firms, hacking attempts could potentially lead to personal information leaks through it.
Koscom explained, "There has been no hacking damage related to this incident so far, and we are checking for additional abnormal signs."
Financial authorities moved to assess the situation on the same day by dispatching an on-site inspection team to Daeshin Securities.
Financial Supervisory Service Governor Lee Chan-jin remarked during his opening speech at a regular meeting with the chairs boards of directors of eight banking holding companies on the same day, "I understand that a general hacking incident occurred yesterday involving major financial investment companies," repeatedly urging the financial sector to reinforce information technology (IT) security.
Aside from these two firms, no other confirmed damages have been reported within the financial investment sector, but other securities and asset management companies are taking additional measures, such as re-inspecting their internal systems.
Nevertheless, with accidents occurring yet again even as all possible security systems are already in operation, the industry's concerns are far from negligible.
Earlier this month, when personal information leak incidents occurred successively at commercial banks and other institutions, security systems were significantly reinforced by blocking attacker Internet Protocol (IP) addresses and expanding the installation of security software.
An official at a mid-sized securities firm said, "There are no abnormalities so far, but we are continuously inspecting external sites and programs," adding, "We always monitor the situation, but hearing this morning that information was leaked at three entities (Daeshin Securities, Mirae Asset Global Investments, and Bithumb), we are discussing and inspecting once again."
Another official from a small-to-medium securities firm stated, "There are no abnormal signs yet, but hearing news of leaks at other financial companies, we are conducting real-time monitoring and preparing for any potential contingencies."
An official from a major securities firm said, "To preemptively respond to similar security threats, we continuously monitor related trends," adding, "We are strengthening our security management framework by constantly checking our own systems for vulnerabilities and abnormal signs."
An official from one of the top five securities firms stated, "To respond to diverse cyber threats, including attacks utilizing AI, we operate a security framework based on anomaly detection, multi-factor authentication, security monitoring, and threat intelligence," and added, "We continue to monitor the latest threat trends and re-inspect our security systems and response processes."
(Photo: Yonhap News)
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