Bithumb, Daishin and Mirae Asset report hacking breaches

Three South Korean financial firms reported data breaches on Wednesday, the Yonhap News Agency said, in the latest cases in a hacking wave across the country’s financial sector. Daishin Securities said in a press release that the personal and credit information of 38,490 customers was leaked, and the Financial Supervisory Service sent an on-site inspection team to the brokerage. Bithumb said it learned on Tuesday that personal information had leaked after an unauthorised outsider accessed its in-house mobile groupware system, and that it is still establishing the scope, including whether member information was included. Mirae Asset Global Investments said it had found signs of abnormal access to some web systems, blocked the route and started an emergency response, and that the information reached was used in internal business systems, with no unique identification, sensitive or personal credit information leaked and no individual investor information involved. The three cases follow an intrusion at Mirae Asset Life on Monday, and Financial Supervisory Service governor Lee Chan-jin told the chairs of eight bank holding companies that morning that a general hacking incident had hit major financial investment firms the previous day, urging boards to lead on IT security as AI tools make attacks easier and more simultaneous. Reuters, relaying Yonhap, added that the cases follow attacks at 16 South Korean financial firms, including banks, that the Financial Services Commission said earlier this month had produced around 100,000 cases of data leaks.