Personal Data of 10,000 People, Including Diplomats, Leaked: Possibility of State-Sponsored Hacking

[Anchor]

It has been revealed belatedly that the online education system of the Korea National Diplomatic Academy, which operates under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, had been compromised by hackers for 10 months. The system contained the personal information of 10,000 individuals, including former and current diplomats and overseas mission staff.

Reporter Kim Ayeong has the story.

[Reporter]

The compromised site is the online education system of the Korea National Diplomatic Academy, affiliated with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The system was established in 2022 during the COVID-19 pandemic to provide remote training for diplomats and other personnel. It was determined that hackers first infiltrated the site's server in April and May of last year.

Investigations revealed that the hackers accessed the system intermittently until February of this year.

The server contained up to 10,000 records of personal information, including that of South Korean diplomats, staff at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs headquarters and overseas diplomatic missions, and personnel dispatched from other government agencies.

The leaked data includes names, user IDs, encrypted passwords, and email addresses. It is also known that it was possible to infer the individuals' job titles and work locations from the data.

[Park Il / Spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs: We take this matter very seriously and will cooperate with relevant agencies to make every effort to thoroughly investigate the incident.]

The hackers are believed to have exploited a zero-day vulnerability—a security flaw unknown even to the software manufacturer. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated that it is not ruling out any possibilities, including the involvement of state-sponsored hacking organizations.

[Jo Jeong-dae / Cybersecurity Expert: If they used an unknown attack method, it is limited for an individual to do so, and there is a possibility that North Korea or China could be behind it.]

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated that the National Intelligence Service notified the ministry of the hacking incident in February, and that access to the site was blocked immediately afterward.

(Video reporting: Joo Yong-jin, Video editing: Lee Seung-yeol)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.