South Korean banks prepare to increase cybersecurity spending — Korea Herald
South Korea’s largest banks are preparing to increase spending on information security following a series of data leaks. The attacks led to the disclosure of customer information through systems used by bank employees and credit agents, The Korea Herald reports.
Current bank budgets
Shinhan Bank has allocated 40.59 billion won, or about $30.4 million, for information security this year. This is the smallest budget among the country’s five largest lenders and is 10.4% lower than last year. Woori Bank cut the corresponding spending by 21.7%, to 61.57 billion won.
At the same time, KB Kookmin Bank allocated the largest amount, 86.08 billion won. NH NongHyup Bank’s budget amounted to 80.13 billion won, while Hana Bank’s stood at 63.64 billion won. In total, the five banks budgeted about 332 billion won for information security, up 3.8% year-on-year.
Shinhan allocated the smallest share of its total IT budget to security, at 9.1%. The figure was 12.2% at Hana, 10.5% at NongHyup, and 9.9% each at KB and Woori.
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New investments after leaks
The largest disclosed data leak occurred at Shinhan and affected approximately 25,000 customers. KB and Hana also reported security breaches. Woori, which cut its budget the most, said it had blocked recent attacks without a new leak of customer data.
KB plans to spend more than 100 billion won on information security next year, at least 16% more than its current budget. Woori is considering increasing spending on building security systems by more than 20% and expanding its staff of relevant specialists by more than 10%.
Hana is developing security projects worth tens of billions of won, with work expected to begin in the current quarter and continue into next year. NongHyup plans to increase investments next year in server protection, security testing of artificial intelligence systems, and vulnerability management. Shinhan also plans to engage external experts, expand threat detection systems, and create an AI-based security operations center.
