National Radio Research Agency, Two Korea-Led Blockchain Standards Adopted at ITU

SG17 Yeonguban Chairpersons Also Expanded from 13 to 16 Seats

[Asia Economy Reporter Eunmo Koo] The National Radio Research Agency under the Ministry of Science and ICT announced on the 3rd that during the ‘International Telecommunication Union (ITU) Telecommunication Standardization Sector (ITU-T) Study Group 17 (SG17) on Information Security’ meeting held online from the 20th to the 30th of last month, two blockchain (distributed ledger technology) related standards developed under Korea’s leadership were pre-adopted, and three additional chair positions were secured.

The officially adopted standards at this meeting, titled ‘Security Threats and Requirements for Distributed Ledger Technology-based Electronic Payment Services’ and ‘Security Threats for Distributed Ledger Technology-based Online Voting Systems,’ identify and analyze security issues that may arise in electronic payment services and online voting systems using distributed ledger technology from various perspectives, and define security requirements to address these issues. The development of these standards was led by Seoul Foreign University (Professor Geundeok Park), Soonchunhyang University (Professors Heungyeol Yeom and Byeongmun Jin), Yanolja (CISO Changoh Kim), and TCA Service (CEO Kyunghui Oh).

The Ministry of Science and ICT explained, “The ‘Security Threats and Requirements for Distributed Ledger Technology-based Electronic Payment Services’ can serve as guidelines to evaluate and improve the security level of the service, and the ‘Security Threats for Distributed Ledger Technology-based Online Voting Systems’ is expected to enhance the reliability of voting results by identifying and eliminating potential security threats in online voting systems.” The official standards will undergo a 1 to 2-month member country circulation before being finally adopted as ITU standards.

Additionally, the meeting discussed the reorganization of the chair positions following the restructuring of the SG17 study group’s subordinate organizations (5 working groups and 12 research task groups). Korea secured two chair positions in the research task groups where actual standard development takes place, and one additional chair position in the working group that reviews and approves standards developed by the research task groups. As a result, Korea’s chair positions in the SG17 study group increased from 13 to 16.

Meanwhile, four new standardization projects related to quantum cryptography communication and de-identified data processing proposed by Korea were also approved at this meeting, with related research expected to commence this year.