The Ministry of Science and ICT will launch an ex officio investigation into the hacking of GS E&C's reservation and management system for apartment complex community facilities.
The ministry announced on the 12th that it held a deliberation committee on intrusion incident investigations on the 11th and decided to conduct an ex officio investigation.
The government believes GS E&C declined to accept investigations by the ministry and the Korea Internet & Security Agency (KISA), saying it would analyze the incident itself. GS E&C countered the government's explanation, saying it declined technical support, not the investigation.
GS E&C reported the intrusion incident involving the system on the 29th of last month. The ministry subsequently convened the deliberation committee.
The committee judged the matter to be serious in view of the scale and sensitivity of the leaked information. Members agreed that an investigation should be conducted at the government level.
In addition to the deliberation result, the ministry reviewed the information leak and the possibility of further damage. As a result, it finalized the ex officio investigation.
This is the first time an ex officio investigation has been decided after deliberation by the committee. The committee was newly created under the revised Information and Communications Network Act, which took effect on Oct. 1. It is a statutory committee intended to respond ahead of cyber intrusion incidents.
The government plans to determine the cause of the incident and the actual damage through this investigation. If the incident is judged to be serious, it will also consider forming a joint public-private investigation team through deliberation by the committee.
GS E&C took a position different from the government's. A GS E&C official explained, “We did not decline consent to the investigation by the government and the Korea Internet & Security Agency (KISA); we only declined consent to technical support for our own cause analysis and recurrence prevention measures.” He added that the company will cooperate faithfully with the ongoing KISA investigation and others.