Ministry of Culture and Affiliated Agencies Face 16.3 Daily Hacking Attempts on Average

Yoo Jeong-ju Lawmaker's Audit Data... The Country Most Frequently Attempted Is China

The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and its affiliated organizations have been subjected to an average of 16.3 hacking attempts per day. According to data from the Ministry's national audit disclosed on the 18th by National Assembly Culture, Sports and Tourism Committee member Yoo Jeong-ju (Democratic Party), there were 27,734 hacking attempts against the Ministry and its affiliates over the past 4 years and 8 months. The most targeted organization was the Korea Tourism Organization (3,587 attempts). Following were the National Library of Korea (1,984 attempts), Korea Culture Information Service (1,938 attempts), National Institute of the Korean Language (1,720 attempts), and Korea Copyright Commission (1,550 attempts). Representative Yoo explained, "There were 916 hacking attempts in the recent 8 months, and more than half, 53.3% (1,720 attempts), targeted the National Institute of the Korean Language."

The number of hacking attempts averaged 5,100 per year until last year. This year, there have been 7,239 attempts through the end of August. Most were 'web hacking' targeting web services. The previously high proportion of malware infection methods has significantly decreased. Tracking by country IP showed that China was the most frequent source of attempts (6,157 times), followed by the United States (3,630 times), Russia (902 times), and the Netherlands (852 times). Meanwhile, attempts originating domestically sharply declined from 983 in 2017 to 64 this year. Representative Yoo stated, "Hacking causes significant damage such as personal information theft," and emphasized, "It is necessary to expand the budget for efficient and prompt prevention and response."