[Anchor]

As hacking damages that began at banks spread across the entire financial sector to savings banks and capital firms, financial authorities held an emergency meeting. So far, seven financial institutions have been confirmed as victims, and authorities estimate that attacks utilizing AI tools have taken place.

Reporter Kwon Ran has the details.

[Reporter]

The Financial Services Commission held an emergency meeting this afternoon (October 4) at the Seoul Government Complex, summoning chief executive officers of the hacked financial institutions and officials from the entire financial sector.

The heads of financial authorities, including Financial Services Commission Chairman Lee Eok-won and Financial Supervisory Service Governor Lee Chan-jin, attended to devise response measures.

Authorities have determined that seven financial institutions suffered information leaks from September 30 to yesterday.

Following four banks including Shinhan, Kookmin, Busan, and Hana, as well as Yegaram and Hyundai Capital, the leak of corporate customer information was additionally confirmed at Welcome Savings Bank.

It appears that approximately 2,200 pieces of corporate customer-related information, such as the names, email addresses, and phone numbers of corporate managers, were leaked.

Authorities believe that auxiliary systems used for loan inquiries or employee work support, rather than core financial networks such as internet and mobile banking, were intensively breached.

Authorities estimate that AI tools were utilized in these attacks.

[Lee Eok-won / Financial Services Commission Chairman: We cannot rule out the possibility of hacking attacks utilizing AI. As new types of high-frequency cyberattacks may continue in the future, we must hurry to establish a security system where AI attacks are defended by AI.]

While authorities noted that leaks of sensitive information that could be directly used for unauthorized payments have not been confirmed, they emphasized that utmost efforts must be made to prevent secondary damages, such as voice phishing and smishing, exploiting the leaked information.

President Lee Jae-myung also expressed a grave understanding of the situation and instructed authorities to conduct a thorough investigation and make full preparations for countermeasures.

(Camera: Cho Choon-dong | Video Editing: Kim Jin-won)