Artificial intelligence may have been used in a string of cyberattacks aiming at South Korea’s financial sector, the president stated Tuesday, as police declared the release of an investigation.
More than 7-financial institutions, inclusive of some of South Korea’s biggest banks, have reported customer data breaches in the past week.
The ability of AI systems to locate previously unknown software vulnerabilities and hack banks, companies or government infrastructure is within the global highlight as main labs launch ever more advanced models.
“There are signs that artificial intelligence was used in a some hacking attacks, triggering huge difficulty and anxiety among the public,” President Lee Jae Myung informed a Cabinet meeting Tuesday.
“We have now attained a point where AI can make (hacking) easy for even those without special skills,” he stated.
More than 68,000 people have been impacted by the hacks, as per the Financial Services Commission.
Shinhan Bank, one of the hacked institutions, mention information attached to loan applications for about 25,000 customers, along with names, phone numbers and annual income, have been leaked.
“With advances in AI technology, hacking techniques have becoming increasingly sophisticated, while the scope of the damage is spreading across all areas on a scale this is tough to compare with the past,” Lee stated.
“The authorities, companies and our society as an entirely need to identify the seriousness of the recent scenario and stay in mainly vigilant.”
Police said Tuesday that an investigation had been released at Lee’s urging.
A authorities official advised AFP it was “tremendously likely” that Artex AI, an open-source security testing tool believed to be a Chinese AI system, was in the attacks.
But officials have said that its use does not shows that the attackers were Chinese.
“Attackers can move between and use IP addresses in numerous locations, so it is impossible to detect an attacker based on an IP address alone,” Park Sang-won, head of the Financial Security Institute, told reporters.
An IP address, or internet protocol address, is a unique range assigned to a especial internet connection.
In Japan, meanwhile, at the least 3 companies have reported data leaks in recent days, whilst 10 firms have stated their data may have been compromised following unauthorized access to servers and other websites.
The important car-sharing company Times Car stated the data of 6.6 million accounts had been leaked, even as a Japanese barbecue barbecue restaurant chain said that the personal data of more than 10 million app users had been leaked.
