![\"President](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/3aacbfe0-d50c-485e-8e0f-c920f2c41f31.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
President Lee Jae Myung speaks during a public event in Sejong, Friday. Joint Press Corps<\/p>\n
President Lee Jae Myung on Sunday ordered a thorough investigation into a string of recent data breaches at financial institutions, as artificial intelligence (AI)-powered cyberattacks increasingly target them.<\/p>\n
According to Cheong Wa Dae, Lee was briefed on recent data breaches at financial and public institutions and their responses to the incidents.<\/p>\n
“The president ordered officials to conduct a thorough investigation and make every effort to devise measures, with a grave awareness of the seriousness of the matter,” presidential spokesperson Kang Yu-jung said.<\/p>\n
The remarks came after a series of data breaches at major financial firms over the past several days.<\/p>\n
Shinhan Bank on Thursday reported a breach affecting about 25,000 customers, followed by similar incidents reported at KB Kookmin Bank, Hana Bank and BNK Busan Bank on Friday.<\/p>\n
The leaked information included customers’ names and phone numbers, as well as annual income and loan limits. Some customers’ resident registration numbers were also exposed.<\/p>\n
The breaches have since spread beyond major banks to nonbank financial institutions. Yegaram Savings Bank has also reported a leak of personal information involving about 40,000 customers, while Hyundai Capital said some personal data of 146 housing loan agents had been exposed.<\/p>\n
Later in the day, financial regulators convened an emergency meeting with chief executives from across the financial sector to discuss countermeasures. <\/p>\n
![\"Financial](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/79e780b6-d882-49a7-9860-5f2c497c076d.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Financial Services Commission Chairman Lee Eog-weon, center, speaks during a meeting with representatives from across the financial sector about recent cyberattacks at banks at Government Complex Seoul, Sunday. Yonhap <\/p>\n
Financial Services Commission (FSC) Chairman Lee Eog-weon and Financial Supervisory Service Gov. Lee Chan-jin chaired the meeting, which brought together representatives from banks, securities firms, insurers, credit card companies, savings banks and fintech companies.<\/p>\n
“We are seeing multiple data breaches across the financial sector in a short period of time, involving not only major commercial banks but also savings banks and other finance companies,” the FSC chairman said. “The entire industry must take the situation seriously and remain on the highest alert.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lee also said financial authorities and companies should maintain a coordinated response, move quickly to protect consumers and provide compensation for any losses, while not ruling out the possibility that AI was used in the attacks.<\/p>\n
Authorities have yet to find any indication that sensitive information that could be used for unauthorized payments has been leaked. But they warned of possible secondary damage, including voice phishing using leaked information.<\/p>\n
Police have launched an investigation into the series of attacks at major banks amid speculation that AI-powered tools were used.<\/p>\n
As cyberattacks become increasingly sophisticated with the rapid development of AI, financial companies are turning to AI technologies to strengthen their defenses.<\/p>\n
At Sunday’s meeting, regulators urged companies to participate in government-led initiatives, including AI security testing, and accelerate the adoption of AI-based security model.<\/p>\n
The hackers behind the Shinhan attack, who are suspected of being based overseas, are believed to have used advanced AI tools to extract customer information, according to industry officials.<\/p>\n
Traces of a Chinese-language AI penetration-testing tool were found on a server believed to have been used in the attack against the bank.<\/p>\n
The server’s HTML title reportedly contained a Chinese phrase meaning “AI autonomous penetration testing console,” suggesting a possible link to ARTEX AI, an open-source autonomous penetration-testing system built on a large language model.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"President Lee Jae Myung speaks during a public event in Sejong, Friday. Joint Press Corps President Lee Jae…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":620375,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[365,363,364,111,139,69,145],"class_list":["post-620374","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/620374","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=620374"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/620374\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/620375"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=620374"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=620374"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=620374"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}