South Korea Orders Emergency Cybersecurity Inspections of 172 Key ICT Facilities Run by 111 Organisations
South Korea's Ministry of Science and ICT (MSIT) announced in Seoul on October 28 that, on a presidential directive, it will carry out emergency security inspections by the end of the year of 172 major private-sector ICT infrastructure facilities managed by 111 organisations, spanning telecommunications, platforms and finance, with a focus on external-facing assets. The move follows a series of suspected personal-information breaches at financial firms since early October.
Korean media quoted the ministry as saying the inspections will analyse the attack methods used in the financial-sector incidents and assess the impact and patching status of PHP vulnerabilities. Regulators suspect attackers have used tools such as super intelligence (SI) to scale up attacks, so the checks cover both external exposure and the remediation of known vulnerabilities.
Government officials said on October 28 that the inspection programme was ordered directly by the President to establish the real security posture of major private facilities before year-end, with organisations required to fix problems found within set deadlines. The ministry has previously held countermeasure meetings with institutions over the financial-sector incidents.
MSIT said inspection results and follow-up requirements will be notified to each organisation individually, and that whether to add uniform industry-wide security standards will be decided based on the findings.
Source: GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 数据中心机房内部（资料图）。BalticServers.com 摄，CC BY-SA 3.0，经 Wikimedia Commons。 / Inside a data centre (file photo). Photo by BalticServers.com, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
