Seoul National University Also Hit by 28 Hacking Incidents in Six Years... 1,132 Pieces of Personal Information Leaked

Hackers Target Department, Research Institute, and Laboratory Systems

A total of 28 hacking incidents have occurred at Seoul National University over the past six years, resulting in the exposure of 1,132 pieces of personal information.

According to data on hacking incidents by year that Seoul National University submitted to Democratic Party of Korea lawmaker Baek Seung-ah, a member of the National Assembly’s Education Committee, a total of 28 hacking incidents were confirmed between 2021 and 2026.

Main gate of Seoul National University. Yonhap News

By year, there were eight incidents in 2021, 10 in 2022, one in 2024, and five in 2025. So far this year, there have been four hacking incidents. By type of affected system, department systems accounted for the largest number, with 19 incidents. There were six incidents involving laboratory systems and two involving research institutes, as well as one incident affecting an institution.

A total of 1,132 pieces of personal information were exposed over the six-year period. Of these, 1,130 were exposed in a hacking incident in 2021. At the time, hackers installed malware that allowed them to remotely issue commands to Seoul National University’s servers and stole members’ identification information and portal IDs. The remaining two cases of personal information exposure resulted from a 2024 hacking incident involving a research institute. The hackers were found to have targeted researchers’ biographies and résumé files. No personal information exposure was confirmed in the other hacking incidents.

More than 500 hacking attempts targeting Seoul National University were found to occur each year. The number of attempts detected and blocked by the university rose from 561 in 2024 to 575 in 2025. So far this year, 588 attempts have been detected.

Seoul National University said of the figures, “These are the number of hacking attempts detected and blocked through security monitoring. Real-time responses prevented incidents from spreading, and immediate security measures were completed.”

Seoul National University said it immediately reported confirmed personal information exposures to the Ministry of Education or the Personal Information Protection Commission. It added that it had never requested an investigation by law enforcement agencies.

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