More Than 110,000 School Google Accounts Compromised... Concerns Over Personal Information Leaks

More than 110,000 Google for Education accounts used at elementary, middle and high schools nationwide have been confirmed as compromised. The damage, first reported in Seoul and Daejeon, has also been confirmed in Gyeonggi Province, South Jeolla Province and Gwangju, prompting calls for a comprehensive review of how schools manage their accounts and measures to prevent a recurrence.

According to the results of a comprehensive survey titled “Use of Google Accounts at Schools by Municipal and Provincial Offices of Education and the Status of Information Leakage” submitted to the Ministry of Education, Assemblywoman Kang Kyungsook of the National Assembly’s Education Committee, on Oct. 20, 2026, confirmed cases of abnormal logins and unauthorized password changes affecting a total of 111,052 Google for Education accounts in five regions: Seoul, Daejeon, Gyeonggi Province, South Jeolla Province and Gwangju.

Daejeon had the largest number of affected accounts, at 74,246, followed by Seoul with 35,500, South Jeolla Province with 811, Gyeonggi Province with 367 and Gwangju with 128.

There are also concerns that the incident may have gone beyond simple account theft and resulted in the exposure of students’ personal information. The personal information collected in the affected accounts included account details and encrypted passwords in Seoul; account details, passwords and names in Daejeon; account details, passwords, grade levels and classes in Gyeonggi Province; and account details, passwords, school names and student names in South Jeolla Province and Gwangju. However, it has yet to be confirmed whether this personal information was actually leaked externally or how much of it was accessed.

Schools nationwide currently use more than 4.53 million Google Workspace accounts for online classes and other purposes. The accounts confirmed as affected in this incident represent about 2.5% of the total. As the use of digital learning platforms expands in education, the need to review account security and personal information protection systems is also growing.

“This is not something that can be resolved simply by changing passwords,” Assemblywoman Kang said. “The Ministry of Education must thoroughly investigate the extent of the personal information exposure and the cause of the incident, and establish a security management system for educational accounts to protect affected students and prevent a recurrence.”

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