National Heritage Cheong Hacking Attempts Reach 6,000 This Year... Security Measures Needed

It has been revealed that there have been over 6,000 hacking attempts targeting the Cultural Heritage Administration and its affiliated institutions just this year.

According to data received by Kim Seung-su, a member of the People Power Party on the National Assembly's Culture, Sports and Tourism Committee, from the Cultural Heritage Administration on the 6th, there were a total of 6,233 hacking attempts against the Cultural Heritage Administration and its eight affiliated institutions from January to August.

This number exceeds the total hacking attempts recorded last year (5,770 cases).

Rep. Kim predicted that if the current trend continues until the end of the year, it could break the record high since related statistics began in 2020.

By type of hacking, website attacks were the most frequent with 5,282 cases (84.7%), followed by unauthorized access (844 cases, 13.5%), denial of service (70 cases, 1.1%), and information gathering (28 cases, 0.4%).

By country of origin, hacking attempts routed through the United States were the highest at 1,788 cases (28.7%), followed by others (1,422 cases, 22.8%), China (1,165 cases, 18.7%), India (406 cases, 6.5%), and Germany (343 cases, 5.5%).

The institution most exposed to hacking was the Korea National University of Cultural Heritage, with a total of 2,581 attempts (41.4%). The Cultural Heritage Administration headquarters (1,647 cases, 26.4%), the National Intangible Heritage Center (1,437 cases, 23.1%), and the Cultural Heritage Promotion Institute (352 cases, 5.6%) were also targeted.

Rep. Kim emphasized the need for more thorough security inspections and the establishment of security measures, especially considering the incident in May when personal information such as addresses, educational backgrounds, and resident registration numbers of about 2,000 Cultural Heritage Administration employees was leaked on the internal network.