Negligence of Military Secrets and Encryption Equipment... Nearly 4,000 Military Security Violators in Five Years

Board of Audit and Inspection Announces Results of Discipline Inspection... Security Violations Increase Each Year from 2020 to 2024
"Baek Seungjoo, President of the War Memorial of Korea, Requested Sponsorship from Tenant Companies and Used Official Vehicles for Personal Purposes"

Nearly 4,000 military personnel were found to have violated security protocols between 2020 and 2024.

Yonhap News Agency

The Board of Audit and Inspection released the results of a special inspection on discipline among public officials in the defense sector on January 8. This audit was conducted jointly, with the Board of Audit and Inspection and internal audit organizations of the Ministry of National Defense and other military agencies dividing responsibilities, taking into account the unique characteristics of military units. The Board explained that the inspection was carried out to strengthen discipline and military readiness, as gaps in the leadership of the Ministry of National Defense and each military branch last year led to increased public anxiety over national security and inconvenience due to passive administration.

3,922 Security Violators in 5 Years... A Threefold Increase from 2020

According to the Board of Audit and Inspection, the number of military security violators decreased from 492 in 2020 to 295 in 2021, but then rose to 556 in 2022, 835 in 2023, and 1,744 in 2024. Of the total 3,922 violators over five years, 2,514 (64%) were company-grade and field-grade officers. The main violations involved mishandling or poor management of classified information.

Incidents included leaving classified military documents (Class II and III) on desks after working hours instead of securing them in double-locked storage, leaving encryption equipment connected to computers, and failing to lock classified document storage before leaving work at Army, Navy, and Air Force headquarters.

There were also shortcomings in base access management. An inspection of whether retired employees from 40 units had returned their official ID cards found that 905 out of 2,686 (33.7%) had not returned them. Additionally, among 9,761 military personnel (excluding enlisted soldiers) who took medical leave, 570 (5.8%) failed to submit required documents such as medical certificates.

Furthermore, the Agency for Defense Development did not appoint enough fire safety managers and conducted 1,000 tests involving explosives in 2024 without operating wildfire prevention measures or manuals, indicating problems in fire response preparedness.

Military Donation Spending Also Lax... Only 8% Used for Conscripts

Issues were also found in the use of military donations, which were sometimes concentrated on certain groups or used as personal incentives. According to the Board of Audit and Inspection, the military received a total of 58.8 billion won in donations from 2020 to 2024 and spent 54.6 billion won.

According to unit management regulations, donations should be used for soldiers as much as possible, considering the characteristics of each unit. However, an audit of whether recipients were conscripted personnel (short-term officers, non-commissioned officers, and enlisted soldiers) found that only 4.4 billion won (8%) was used exclusively for conscripts.

In some cases, 6.6 billion won (12%) was spent with no conscripts included among the recipients, and for 30.9 billion won (57%), the recipients could not be verified due to a lack of documentation.

Additionally, a sample inspection of 40 military institutions found that 2.6 billion won (16.6%) out of 15.7 billion won in donations was used for inappropriate purposes, such as personal incentives for general officers or support for overseas travel expenses.

Separately, Baek Seungjoo, President of the War Memorial of Korea, a Ministry of National Defense-affiliated institution, was found to have requested that the head of a tenant company in the memorial building participate in establishing a sponsorship association to support the memorial. The company head contributed the entire amount of 50 million won free of charge to maintain a favorable relationship.

President Baek also used an official vehicle for non-work purposes, such as personally driving to a golf course on holidays, using the dedicated vehicle 25 times between June 2023 and January 2025, and requested a driver to operate the official vehicle for overseas trips.

The War Memorial stated that it never requested donations and claimed that overseas travel was part of official duties in a broad sense, but the Board of Audit and Inspection did not accept this explanation. The Board notified the Ministry of National Defense to take appropriate action regarding President Baek.

Additionally, the Board pointed out that, although the Ministry of National Defense announced the lifting of military facility protection zones in the official gazette, some areas remained designated as military protection zones in the integrated real estate information system due to poor management of topographical maps, raising concerns about infringement of citizens' property rights.