South Korea Secures Leadership in International Standards for AI and 6G Security

Fourteen New Standardization Projects Approved at ITU Information Security Meeting
New Dedicated AI Security Research Project Established; Development of 6G Security International Standards Begins

South Korea is taking the lead in developing international standards for artificial intelligence (AI) and 6th generation mobile communication (6G) security, aiming to secure global technological competitiveness.

The Ministry of Science and ICT announced on June 12 that, at the International Telecommunication Union Telecommunication Standardization Sector (ITU-T) Study Group 17 (SG17) international meeting held in Geneva, Switzerland, from the 1st to the 10th, fourteen new standardization items proposed by South Korea were approved. In addition, seven international standards received preliminary adoption, while six international standards and two technical reports were given final approval.

Reference photo to aid in understanding the article. Engineers from a telecommunications company are checking the status of outdoor wireless data transmission and reception. Photo by The Asia Business Daily DB

The meeting was attended by 477 experts from 60 countries worldwide. South Korea dispatched a delegation of 59 experts from industry, academia, and research institutions, and worked to reflect a total of 64 domestic information security technologies in the international standards.

In particular, South Korea successfully led the approval of new standardization projects in future core technology fields, such as a multimodal AI-based Internet of Things (IoT) device security framework, IMT-2030 (6G) network security technical requirements, a physical AI system security framework, and an AI agent ID management mechanism using decentralized identification (ID).

The IMT-2030 security requirements approved at this meeting are the first 6G security international standards initiated by the ITU-T. These are expected to serve as core criteria in future 6G candidate technology evaluations and standardization processes.

South Korea's influence in the field of AI security has also expanded. At the SG17 plenary session held in April, a dedicated research project on AI security (Q16), reflecting the research scope proposed by South Korea, was newly established. At this meeting, South Korea led the development of international standards by submitting numerous standardization contributions, including AI system security requirements and physical AI security technologies.

In addition, seven items in which South Korea has taken the lead—such as AI system security requirements, a security framework for detecting targeted email attacks, and communication network zero-trust security guidelines—have entered the preliminary adoption stage as international standards.

Six international standards, including guidelines for responding to software supply chain security threats and digital collection service security guidelines based on distributed ledger technology (DLT), as well as two technical reports such as a DLT security standardization roadmap, were also given final approval.

Lim Jeongkyu, Director-General for Information Protection Network Policy at the Ministry of Science and ICT, stated, "As artificial intelligence spreads across all industries, developing international information protection standards is crucial for building trustworthy AI. We will continue to support South Korea's leadership in establishing international standards in future key security technology fields such as AI, 6G mobile communications, digital identity, and supply chain security."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.