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The Korea Internet and Security Agency finds that Internet firms in the country are not willing to collaborate with them

Image Credit: Rayi Christian Wicaksono / Unsplash

Companies operating in Korea should be more proactive in terms of reporting cyber vulnerabilities, says the Korea Internet and Security Agency (KISA), according to a report by the Korea Times.

By doing that, the agency would be able to come up with a larger number of online security initiatives.

“More companies need to share their cyber-related problems with us to build a more secure cyber environment nationwide,” said Ju Young-wan, Director, Internet Incidents Response Division at KISA.

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The agency, which was built in 2003 to protect the country from cyber attacks, is working with Naver, one of the biggest web and mobile platforms in South Korea, and Hancom, a local word processor firm.

However, many companies in the country are afraid to come forward because they feel that these cyber vulnerabilities may “tarnish their brand image” should they be exposed, noted the original report.

“We award companies which report their weak points in cyber systems, but most of them are reluctant to collaborate with us,” said Ju.

Newsweek reported that South Korea was cyber-attacked 114,000 times in the last five years, with only less than one per cent of those attacks originating from IP addresses in North Korea, which it is technically still at war with.

PC World also published an article noting that three broadcasters and banks, and two insurance firms, had filed police reports that “their computer networks were halted for unknown reasons”, according to an unnamed source working at the country’s Science, ICT and Future Planning Ministry.

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“Cyber security is not for a single organisation, but for the public,” said Ju. “Developing more protective measures is urgent as cyber attacks cause massive damages. Toward this end, we need to find what cyber vulnerabilities each company is facing.”

The agency is also concerned about stopping “malignant code from spreading on mobile devices,” he added, noting that potential attacks targeting specific software are constantly sent to telecom operators, so that they can “notify each user of possible attacks” and equip users with “vaccine programmes”.

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