Heads of Korea's five biggest banks apologise to parliament over hacking

According to the Seoul Economic Daily, Shinhan Bank chief Jung Sang-hyuk expressed deep regret over the leak of customer data. KB Kookmin's Lee Hwan-joo pledged adequate budget and staff and said the bank would counter attacks with AI-based security systems. He added that network separation rules, which wall internal systems off from the internet, cannot be scrapped in one go and should be phased out gradually. FSS governor Lee Chan-jin said losses would be compensated in full.

Digital Today reported on 20 October that breaches had been confirmed at 16 financial institutions as of 14 October, with roughly 100,000 records thought to have leaked. About 50,000 records, including identity and account numbers, leaked from Yegaram Savings Bank, where the FSS has begun an on-site inspection. At OK Savings Bank, account, income and credit details of 518 customers were exposed. An emergency audit of 555 financial institutions found shortcomings at 130, including unapplied patches and weak access controls.

The regulatory response is turning into a budget question. The Financial Services Commission plans to require large institutions to run vulnerability scans at least twice a year and is weighing a shared monitoring system for smaller ones. The four big commercial banks spent only 68.0% of their information security budgets last year. KB Kookmin plans a security budget of more than 100 billion won for 2027. Sources differ on which committee held the hearing: the same report names both the Political Affairs and the National Policy Committee.