Amid a string of personal data breaches targeting financial companies, it has emerged that customer information leaked from Mirae Asset Life Insurance. It is the first time such damage has been confirmed at an insurer. The company is examining log records to trace the route and scope of the leak, and the specific scale of damage is expected to take shape as early as the 28th.
A Mirae Asset Life official said on the 27th, "We are checking related records and files along the route the hacker accessed to determine whether personal information is included and the scope of the leak," adding, "We expect the log analysis to be completed as early as the 28th, allowing us to confirm the specific scale of damage." According to the financial sector, the company found abnormal signs in some systems on the 25th, examined the cause with an outside specialist agency, and learned in the early hours of the 26th that personal information had leaked. The breached parts are known to be the customer subscription system and part of the website.
According to the company, the hacker stayed on the website for more than 10 minutes, and the company confirmed the leak while tracing the intrusion route backward afterward. The Financial Supervisory Service has begun an emergency on-site inspection and is looking into the circumstances of the incident and the scale of damage.
The key issue is whether this attack was carried out by the same or a similar method and route as earlier hacks in the financial sector. Mirae Asset Life received an 'adequate' rating in the security checklist inspection that financial authorities sent down after the string of breaches. If the method turns out to be the same as in earlier incidents, it would mean the company failed to prevent a leak even after passing the inspection, and the effectiveness of the emergency inspection could become controversial.
The company believes that, since it complied with the security settings the checklist required, the attack type or route is likely to differ from earlier incidents. However, the actual method is expected to be determined only once the ongoing investigation is completed.
There are also voices saying it is hard to prevent every hack by relying only on the checklist drawn up by the authorities. With more than 100,000 hacking attempts a day targeting the financial sector, they say that merely complying with the emergency inspection items cannot guarantee the overall security level of financial firms. A financial authority official said, "The checklist is a set of inspection items for emergency response, and complying with all 12 items does not mean every type of hacking can be stopped," adding, "The attack type and route in this incident are still matters to be determined."
The number of victims has also grown in the banking sector. KB Kookmin Bank said on the 26th that the information of a total of 2,210 people leaked in the hacking incident earlier this month. The number of people leaked as tallied right after the incident was 119, but 2,091 more emerged after further investigation by the Korea Financial Security Institute and submission of data. The additionally confirmed people are 1,631 customers and 460 employees. A Kookmin Bank official said, "We plan to notify the additionally confirmed customers of the leak and how to prevent secondary damage."