The problem is that no one noticed these widespread hacking attacks in a timely manner. The attackers targeted vulnerable security spots, raising suspicions that artificial intelligence may have been used to design the attacks themselves.
Reporter Jeong Seong-jin has the details.
[Reporter]
Kookmin Bank, where the personal information of 119 customers was leaked, first became aware of the breach at 7 p.m. on September 30.
This was after the hacking attack had already concluded.
The hacking lasted for more than 42 hours, from 11:19 p.m. on September 27 until the evening of September 29, but it was only discovered 68 hours later.
Yegaram Savings Bank suffered its first hacking attack on September 18, yet remained unaware of the breach for over ten days.
After news broke of the Shinhan Bank hacking incident—which resulted in the leakage of personal information belonging to some 25,000 individuals—financial authorities launched a comprehensive inspection, leading other financial companies to belatedly discover their own data breaches.
When the 10 IP addresses used to hack Shinhan Bank were shared with respective financial institutions for verification, it was revealed that Hana Bank and Hyundai Capital had also been attacked from the same IPs.
In the process, it was confirmed that widespread hacking attempts had also targeted Woori Bank and NongHyup Bank.
Because the targets of the hacking were loan recruiter or employee systems rather than the main customer-facing systems, security was likely weak and detection proved difficult.
The cybersecurity industry suspects that artificial intelligence went beyond merely aiding the hacks, and may have been used to design the attacks targeting vulnerabilities.
Artex AI, presumed to have been utilized in these hacks, is an autonomous penetration testing tool. Experts suggest that an AI originally meant to patch security vulnerabilities was instead weaponized as a hacking tool to precisely pinpoint and exploit weak spots.
[Moon Jong-hyun / Director, Genians Security Center: If they tried to access the main site, it would have been more likely to trigger monitoring. Therefore, there may have been an AI-driven information gathering phase that pinpointed areas with weaker security or vulnerabilities.]
As AI-driven cyberattacks emerge as a realistic threat, experts point out that a thorough overhaul of security systems is necessary, extending beyond core computing networks to encompass peripheral business systems as well.
(Video Editing: Choi Hye-ran, Design: Kang Yun-jung, Kim Ye-ji, Seo Seung-hyun)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.
Click Here For The Original Source.
