"KT Announces 1 Trillion Won Investment... AI to Block Phishing and Spam for Safer Service"

Introduction of AI Monitoring System... Reinforcement of Specialized Personnel
Adoption of Predictive and Preventive Security Beyond Simple Defense
Advancement of Voice Phishing and Text Spam Detection Technologies

KT announced on the 15th that it will invest more than 1 trillion won over five years in information security innovation. Employees are monitoring the status of information security at the KT Network Control Center in Gwacheon, Gyeonggi Province. Photo by KT

KT announced on July 15 that it will invest more than 1 trillion won over the next five years to prevent cyberattacks and protect customer information. The company plans to introduce new artificial intelligence (AI) technologies, pursue global collaboration, and secure specialized security personnel as part of this initiative.

Hwang Taeseon, Executive Vice President of KT's Information Security Office, held a "KT Customer Safety and Security Briefing" at Center Point Gwanghwamun in Jongno-gu, Seoul on the same day, where he unveiled the 1 trillion won investment plan aimed at innovating the company's information protection system. Through this plan, KT will focus on four key pillars of information security innovation: strengthening the AI monitoring system, expanding global collaboration and diagnostic consulting, completing a zero-trust framework, and increasing the number of dedicated security personnel.

KT operates its own security framework with the goal of providing not just simple defense, but predictive and preventive security. The company will also institutionalize regular penetration testing and vulnerability improvement activities, and conduct third-party security inspections to prevent external threats. KT is building its response system by collaborating with global security firms and securing world-class security experts and personnel.

KT is also working to complete its security framework based on the Zero Trust principle. Zero Trust refers to a security concept that continuously verifies users and devices and grants only the minimum necessary privileges.

In addition, KT is preparing differentiated services that can substantially reduce damage to customers' telecommunications activities. In the second half of this year, the company plans to launch "KT AI Voice Phishing Detection 2.0"?the first such commercial service among telecom operators?upon receiving approval from the Personal Information Protection Commission. This upgraded service will be able to detect both speaker identity and deep voice manipulation.

This is the next version of the real-time AI voice phishing detection service that was launched in January of this year. In collaboration with the National Forensic Service, the AI has learned from over 25,000 voice phishing audio samples, enabling it to analyze the context of calls in real time, detect warning signs, and provide users with notifications in the form of "caution" or "warning." The 2.0 version aims to improve detection accuracy to 95% and prevent more than 200 billion won in crime-related damages.

KT is also advancing its AI-based response to text message spam. Having already implemented a real-time AI keyword registration system for spam blocking, KT plans to further enhance its filtering structure in the second half of the year to respond to new types of spam, such as investment solicitation and social media conversation inducement. The company is also operating an AI Clean Messaging system that blocks spam at the source. The AI engine accesses internet URLs within text messages in a virtual environment to detect malicious activity such as smishing, and learns the characteristics of malicious URL source codes to determine their risk.

To counter the recent surge in large-scale DDoS attacks, KT will more than double the defense capacity of its Clean Zone within this year, and will introduce a monitoring dashboard next month that allows customers to view DDoS attack detection information. The company also plans to implement a proactive DDoS response system based on AI learning of new threat patterns by the end of the year.

Lee Hyunseok, Head of KT's Customer Division (Vice President), stated, "We will strive to respond to voice phishing and spam in real time using AI technology throughout the entire process of our customers' use of telecommunications services," adding, "KT will establish a new security standard in the field of information security to remain true to the fundamentals."