South Korean central bank and state lenders face over one million cyberattack attempts

According to figures disclosed by lawmaker Kang Min-kuk of the People Power Party, South Korea's central bank and three state-owned lenders experienced 1,024,478 hacking attempts from January through September, up 9.6% from the prior year and surpassing the entire 2025 total. The tally continues a climb that started with 358,800 attempts in 2020. Industrial Bank of Korea accounted for 91.9% of the cumulative nearly 5 million attempts since 2020, reflecting its extensive internet and mobile services.

Korea Development Bank logged 399,379 attempts, while the Bank of Korea and the Export-Import Bank of Korea recorded only a few hundred each. Although no successful intrusions have been confirmed, regulators have ordered banks to audit exposed systems, strengthen authentication, and share threat intelligence following data leaks at Shinhan, KB Kookmin and Hana banks. Denial-of-service attacks represented 45.6% of all attempts, followed by information-gathering, malware and unauthorized access probes. Kang warned that attacks on state lenders could jeopardize domestic and international financial stability and called for AI-driven defense simulations.