There are concerns that the personal information of hundreds of thousands of individuals may have been compromised due to potential cyberattacks on two major South Korean churches.
Both the Yoido Full Gospel Church and Sarang Church in Seoul are currently looking into these attacks, which could potentially impact many of their congregants.
A cybersecurity firm, Oasis Security, reported finding records of the attacks and account details on a foreign server that appears to be linked to the two churches.
The firm noted that evidence suggests that artificial intelligence (AI) tools were possibly involved in the cyber intrusions.
Specifically, Oasis Security mentioned mentions of “sub-agents” and detailed attack reports that seemed to have been created automatically.
On Wednesday, the Yoido Full Gospel Church disclosed that an initial assessment indicated that data associated with around 850,000 of its members might have been breached.
This data reportedly includes personal details like names and birth dates, while a smaller subset contains national IDs, addresses, and phone numbers.
The church is currently informing those affected and has also cut off external access and updated its server passwords.
Furthermore, the church has reported the breach to the relevant authorities.
Sarang Church, on the other hand, has set up an emergency task force in response to the suspected cyber event.
It confirmed that it has alerted authorities and is taking additional measures to investigate the situation and ensure such incidents don’t occur in the future.
These suspected cyberattacks follow recent hacking incidents targeting South Korean banks, which also resulted in the exposure of customers’ personal data.
South Korean President Lee Jae Myung remarked on Tuesday that there were indications of AI being utilized in some of the latest hacking events involving banking institutions.
