Korean Companies Neglect Information Security Investment in the AI Era... Only 0.1% of Sales Allocated

CEO Score Corporate Data Institute Analysis
2.24 Trillion Won Invested in Information Security Last Year
Only 0.13% of Total Sales Allocated
Only Samsung and KT Invested Over 100 Billion Won
Platform and Telecom Companies Show Even Lower Investment Proportion

The proportion of information security investment to total sales among major companies in Korea was found to be only 0.1%.

Photo by Getty Images Bank

On July 9, CEO Score, a corporate data research institute, analyzed the investment status of 585 companies that have disclosed information security data for three consecutive years on the Information Security Disclosure Comprehensive Portal. The analysis showed that last year, the amount invested in information security reached 2.2401 trillion won. This represents a 28.4% increase compared to the 1.7741 trillion won invested in 2022.

However, the proportion of information security investment to total sales for these companies remained at around 0.1%, with 0.1% in 2022 (total sales of 1,734.4379 trillion won), 0.12% in 2023 (total sales of 1,686.9952 trillion won), and 0.13% in 2024 (total sales of 1,787.3174 trillion won).

During the same period, total IT investment by these companies increased from 28.7949 trillion won to 33.0463 trillion won and then to 36.1091 trillion won. However, the proportion of information security investment within this IT investment remained stagnant at 6.1%, 6%, and 6.2%, respectively.

Regarding this, CEO Score commented, "With the advent of the artificial intelligence (AI) era, major companies are steadily expanding their investments in information technologies such as AI, robotics, and big data. However, they are neglecting investment in information security, which is an essential requirement."

By company, only two firms invested more than 100 billion won in information security last year: Samsung Electronics (356.2 billion won) and KT (125 billion won). They were followed by Coupang (86.1 billion won), LG Uplus (82.8 billion won), SK Telecom (65.2 billion won), Samsung SDS (65.2 billion won), SK Hynix (62.2 billion won), Naver (55.3 billion won), Woori Bank (44.4 billion won), Kookmin Bank (42.5 billion won), Hyundai Motor Company (36.7 billion won), and Naver Cloud (33.3 billion won).

Despite managing large-scale customers and having a critical need for security, platform companies and telecommunications firms actually had a lower proportion of investment in information security. Last year, the proportion of information security investment to IT investment for the three major domestic platform companies?Naver, Kakao, and Naver Cloud?was 3.5%, 4.5%, and 5.1%, respectively, falling short of the general corporate average of 6.2%. Among the three major telecommunications companies, SK Telecom, which recently experienced a USIM hacking incident, had the lowest proportion at 4.2%. KT recorded 6.3%, and LG Uplus was at 7.4%.