2026.10.04. The Fair Economy — Financial regulators announced on the 4th that they will conduct an emergency review of the security systems across the entire financial sector in response to the recent chain of cyber intrusion threats.
The Financial Services Commission and the Financial Supervisory Service held a joint emergency review meeting for the entire financial sector at the Government Seoul Complex on the same day, chaired by Lee Eui-won, Chairman of the Financial Services Commission.
In addition to Chairman Lee, the meeting was attended by Financial Supervisory Service Governor Lee Chan-jin, Financial Security Institute President Park Sang-won, heads of associations for each business sector, and officials from seven major financial companies. Relevant agencies including the Ministry of Science and ICT, the Personal Information Protection Commission, and the National Police Agency also joined for a government-wide response.
The financial authorities instructed a comprehensive identification of IT assets and services exposed externally, and a re‑examination of security vulnerabilities and authentication/access control systems. The scope includes the entire financial sector, not only banks and card companies but also mutual finance, savings banks, insurance, securities, fintech and other small‑to‑medium‑size financial institutions.
External touchpoints and system access routes used by executives and staff in their work will also be closely inspected. Even if unrelated to customer‑facing services, unnecessary external access will be blocked in principle to minimize potential risk. Access privileges and query information must be limited to the minimum necessary.
Effective measures for consumer protection in the event of a security breach were also emphasized. The scope of leaked information and potential damage should be quickly identified and appropriate protective measures implemented. Detection functions for abnormal financial transactions should be strengthened to prevent secondary damage such as voice phishing and smishing.
A joint response system through threat information sharing is also being established. Confirmed threat information, such as attack IPs and methods, will be rapidly disseminated among related agencies and financial companies for immediate use in detection and blocking measures. Immediate information sharing will be encouraged when new signs of attacks are detected.
The government plans to clarify the cause of the incident and identify institutional improvement tasks in light of this case. In particular, to build a security system that 'defends AI attacks with AI' in line with AI technology development, it will promote a security transition based on the Zero Trust principle.
The emergency inspection is seen as a measure to alleviate consumer anxiety caused by recent customer information leakage incidents at several banks. The Financial Supervisory Service has launched an emergency on-site investigation to determine the circumstances of the incidents.
A major cause of recent financial sector intrusion incidents is identified as unauthorized external access via authentication bypass methods. Security vulnerabilities have been found at external touchpoints, such as simple inquiry services for loan solicitors, leading to information leaks. Consequently, information security industry experts are increasingly pointing out that multi-factor authentication (MFA) and the Zero Trust model must be applied across the entire system, going beyond simple IP blocking.
In the financial sector's security management system, managing external contact points is emerging as a key challenge amid accelerating digital transformation. This is because the proportion of data processing through external IT services such as cloud and third parties such as outsourcing companies is increasing. Cases of information leakage due to negligence or omission of authentication procedures by external company employees continue to be reported, and it is understood that resolving security blind spots is urgent.
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