[Featured Stock] Sands Lab Wins Quantum-Resistant Pilot Project Amid Lee Jae-myung Camp 'Deepfake' Accusation Issue

SandsLab is showing strong performance. The news that it won the '2025 Quantum-Resistant Cryptography Pilot Transition Support' project together with KEPCO KDN and KSign appears to be influencing its stock price. Growing awareness of deepfake issues ahead of the early presidential election was also cited as a positive factor for the stock price. Since the beginning of this year, SandsLab has been actively fostering its deepfake detection solution, 'FakeCheck,' as a new growth engine.

As of 10:06 AM on the 16th, SandsLab was trading at 9,480 KRW, up 1,280 KRW (15.61%) from the previous trading day.

On the same day, SandsLab announced that it had won the '2025 Quantum-Resistant Cryptography Pilot Transition Support' project together with KEPCO KDN and KSign. The project involves performing a pilot transition and verification of quantum-resistant cryptography (PQC) for Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI). It is conducted to support the transition of cryptographic systems to PQC across key industrial sectors such as energy, healthcare, and administration. The goal is to secure procedures and application cases through pilot transitions of cryptographic systems by industry sector.

The PQC transition SandsLab is undertaking this time is in the energy sector. AMI is a system that remotely measures electricity usage and monitors it in real time. According to SandsLab, if the AMI system is attacked, it could lead not only to personal information leaks or financial damage but also to cascading failures of national infrastructure such as financial system paralysis and large-scale blackouts, making a swift transition to PQC systems necessary.

SandsLab stated that once the cryptographic transition is piloted, it will contribute to establishing a foundation that can be applied not only to AMI infrastructure but also to national joint authentication infrastructure and private certification Public Key Infrastructure (PKI). They expect to secure an opportunity to lead the early-stage quantum security technology and, in the long term, reduce security maintenance costs and improve operational efficiency amid frequent algorithm changes.

The deepfake issue is also drawing attention. The presidential primary campaign of Lee Jae-myung, a Democratic Party candidate, announced the day before that it would file a police complaint against the distributor of a deepfake video of the candidate on charges of defamation and violation of the Public Official Election Act. The campaign said, "We strongly warned last week against the distribution of false and manipulated information such as deepfakes," adding, "Nevertheless, we confirmed that false and manipulated information containing defamatory content against the candidate in maliciously produced deepfake videos continues to be distributed."

SandsLab launched 'FakeCheck' in September last year. It is a solution that determines whether an image-based deepfake is present within 15 seconds. Using AI-based multi-scanning detection technology, it analyzes whether manipulation has occurred and has received positive responses with about 200,000 requests within six months of its launch. Currently, video detection is not possible, but a video detection feature is planned to be added within this year.