Joincheol: "83% of Cyber Attack Victims Are Small and Medium Enterprises"

"Information Security Budget 'Halved'... Needs Fundamental Reassessment"

Assemblyman Join Chul

It has been revealed that 83% of cyber attack damages over the past five years have been concentrated on small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

According to data submitted by the Ministry of Science and ICT to Jo In-cheol, a member of the Democratic Party of Korea representing Gwangju Seo-gu Gap, the reported cyber intrusion incidents increased more than threefold from 418 cases in 2019 to 1,277 cases last year. In particular, 3,364 cases, accounting for 82.5% of the total 4,080 reported cases, occurred in SMEs.

The concentration of cyber intrusion damages in SMEs is due to a lack of budget and personnel. Most of the affected companies often do not even have dedicated security staff, and a significant number use outdated versions of operating system software or are not even aware that a cyber attack has occurred.

Since 2014, the Ministry of Science and ICT has been conducting the ‘Regional SME Information Security Support’ project to enhance the information protection level of SMEs and strengthen their capabilities to prevent and respond to cyber intrusion incidents. This project has been well received, with 1,555 companies participating annually. However, the budget, which was 10.5 billion KRW last year, sharply decreased to 5.8 billion KRW this year, and the government budget proposal for next year has been drastically reduced to 2.6 billion KRW, which is one-quarter of the previous amount.

Assemblyman Jo pointed out, “Reducing the related budget despite the fact that damages to SMEs inevitably spread to mid-sized and large companies they trade with, as well as to the government, is a shortsighted behavior by the government,” and added, “Active government measures, including a fundamental review of next year’s budget, are necessary.”