[2026 Parliamentary Audit] Hacking Attempts on Bank of Korea, State-Run Banks Rise Every Year... Top 1.02 Million This Year

4,986,964 attempted attacks from 2020 through September this year
Industrial Bank of Korea tops the list with 4,584,000 attacks

As large-scale hacking attacks targeting the financial sector came to light, attempts to hack the Bank of Korea and the three state-run banks—the Export-Import Bank of Korea, Korea Development Bank and Industrial Bank of Korea—have also increased every year. In particular, more than 1 million hacking attempts were made against these banks during the nine months from January to September this year, the highest number on record.

According to data submitted by the Bank of Korea, the Export-Import Bank of Korea·Korea Development Bank·and Industrial Bank of Korea to Rep. Kang Min-guk of the People Power Party, a member of the National Assembly’s Finance and Economy Planning Committee, a total of 4,986,964 hacking attempts were made against the four banks from 2020 through September this year.

The number rose steadily each year, from 358,800 in 2020 to 564,430 in 2021, 585,563 in 2022, 738,312 in 2023, 780,524 in 2024 and 934,858 in 2025. This year, there had already been 1,024,478 hacking attempts by September.

By type of hacking attack, denial-of-service attacks—which make normal service impossible by allowing one or more users to monopolize or destroy system resources—were the most common, with 2,275,006 cases (45.6%).

These were followed by 866,776 information-gathering attacks, 475,026 malware attacks and 456,783 unauthorized access attempts.

By bank, the Industrial Bank of Korea had by far the most cases, with 4,584,000 (91.9%), followed by Korea Development Bank with 399,379, the Bank of Korea with 3,076 and the Export-Import Bank of Korea with 510.

The Industrial Bank of Korea explained the high number of hacking attempts, saying, “We provide internet and mobile services to individual and corporate customers at a level comparable to commercial banks, so a relatively large number of hacking attempts are detected.”

The Bank of Korea’s “Gyeonggi IT Center,” which houses its main computer server, recorded 145 hacking intrusion attempts after it was established in October 2025. There were 135 unauthorized access attempts and 10 malware attacks against the Bank of Korea’s Gyeonggi IT Center.

Rep. Kang said, “Hacking attacks on state-run banks do not merely result in personal information being leaked; they can disrupt domestic and international financial systems and put sensitive information held by the government and businesses at risk. We must build an information protection system to guard against the sharp rise in AI-enabled cyberattacks and prepare on multiple levels, in cooperation with financial authorities, through measures such as simulated drills based on the assumption of a hacking attack.”

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