A High School in Hwaseong Exposes New Students' Academic Scores and Rankings on Homepage

Academic Records Left Unattended for Over 10 Minutes
Concerns Raised Over Security Awareness in Public Institutions

Personal information such as contact details of new high school students in Gyeonggi Province was exposed externally. This incident occurred even before the case of a file containing the names, scores, and affiliated schools of students who took last year's National Joint Academic Achievement Test was resolved after being circulated on the internet.

According to the Gyeonggi Provincial Office of Education on the 25th, a high school located in Hwaseong posted new student class assignment information on the school website on the 23rd, simultaneously disclosing information of about 300 new students, including their names, dates of birth, mobile phone numbers, internal grades, and rankings.

Gyeonggi Provincial Office of Education

The post was left unattended for about 10 minutes and was deleted only after complaints from parents.

The school stated, "We sincerely apologize for the leakage of new students' personal information," and explained that there was a mistake during the process of modifying and posting the class assignment file.

On the 19th, there was a leak of the National Joint Academic Achievement Test score data conducted on November 23 last year for first- and second-year high school students nationwide. As similar incidents have occurred repeatedly, citizens' concerns about the security of public institutions are growing.

In the early morning of the 19th, a netizen claimed on an internet community that they hacked the provincial education office's server and confirmed the National Joint Academic Achievement Test scores administered by the provincial education office last November. Subsequently, a file titled "Entire 2nd Year Individual Score Reports" was circulated on the encrypted messenger application Telegram.

This file contains the test scores, affiliated schools, names, and genders of second-year high school students who took the exam from 15 city and provincial education offices nationwide, excluding the Gyeongnam and Chungnam Offices of Education.

The Gyeonggi Provincial Office of Education stated, "It has been determined that the server did not contain sensitive personal information such as phone numbers or resident registration numbers," and added, "We have taken measures to prevent further information leakage and will actively cooperate with the police investigation." Approximately 300,000 students nationwide took this exam.