South Korean President Lee Jae Myung said Tuesday that AI models are believed to have been used in some recent hacking incidents against banks and called for the country to develop cybersecurity methods suited to the AI era.
“In some hacking incidents, signs have emerged of AI being used, causing considerable public concern and anxiety,” Lee said during a Cabinet meeting.
“Please establish the circumstances swiftly and clearly, and concentrate personnel and resources on minimizing the damage.”
South Korea’s police have launched a full-scale investigation into the hacking attacks against commercial banks that led to a breach of customers’ personal information, the Yonhap news agency reported Tuesday.
Shinhan Bank, KB Kookmin Bank and others had reported cyberattacks, the Financial Services Commission (FSC) said on Friday, while Yonhap reported that Hana Bank and Woori Bank also suffered breaches.
Authorities have not yet disclosed details on what kind of AI tools were used in the hacking incidents or the full scale of the breaches.
On Sunday, FSC Chairman Lee Eog-weon convened an emergency meeting with financial industry associations, regulators and executives from affected institutions, warning that the sector must respond with the highest level of vigilance.
The Financial Supervisory Service (FSS), a financial watchdog, and the Financial Security Institute shared data about 28 unique IP addresses and some country information linked to the recent hacking attempts with the financial sector, the FSS said Tuesday.
In September, Australia said an OpenAI agent breached a government health data portal in June, gaining unauthorized access to files, in what could be the first known instance of an AI agent hacking a government website.
An artificial intelligence research firm said last week that AI agents tried to hack into a Canadian government website, casting the effort as a failed hacking attempt, while Canada said there were no indications its systems were compromised.
Additional reporting (WSJ, Korea Herald)
Hackers used a Chinese artificial-intelligence agent to attack South Korea’s biggest banks and steal the personal information of 68,000 people, officials said, marking one of the first such AI-powered intrusions into the global financial system.
Investigators found traces of ARTEX AI, an open-source, LLM-based autonomous penetration-testing system distributed primarily through GitHub and aimed at Chinese-speaking users. Officials stressed the AI did not act independently without human involvement—a hacker used the AI as a tool.
Attacks hit at least seven financial firms including Shinhan (25,729 records via loan-agent inquiry service), KB Kookmin (119 records from employee mobile system), Hana Bank (89 records from ODS sales-support system), and BNK Busan Bank (11 contract workers). Attacks targeted internal employee or partner-facing systems rather than customer-facing internet or mobile banking.
President Lee called for accelerating development of AI technologies specialized in cybersecurity and overhauling the nation’s security paradigm for the AI era.