SEOUL, October 22 (AJP) - More than 10,000 people, including students and alumni of Yonsei University in Seoul, have had their personal information exposed in a cyberattack on the institution's online portal, the university announced Thursday, marking the latest in a series of data breaches across South Korea.
In a notice issued on Thursday, the university's Office of Information and Communications confirmed that unauthorized external access to its Yonsei Portal Service had compromised personal information belonging to members of the university community.
The leaked information included student identification numbers, mobile phone numbers, email addresses and certain system management data.
Yonsei said it had blocked the unauthorized access route and requested an investigation by law enforcement authorities. The university also apologized to those affected and pledged to strengthen security measures to prevent similar incidents.
Further details, including the specific types of information exposed for individual users, are scheduled to become available on the university's official website from 1 p.m. Thursday.
The incident follows a major cybersecurity breach at Sogang University, another private university in Seoul, where approximately 180,000 personal information records involving students, graduates and university employees were compromised in August.
According to Sogang University, unauthorized access occurred on Aug. 11, but the institution detected suspicious activity three days later. The exposed information included names, student and employee identification numbers, departmental affiliations, email addresses, phone numbers and encrypted passwords.
The breach also affected former President Park Geun-hye, a Sogang University graduate.
Yonsei had issued a cybersecurity warning just 10 days before announcing the latest breach. In an Oct. 12 notice, the university recommended stronger authentication procedures, the removal of inactive accounts and tighter restrictions on external access, citing recent cyberattacks targeting financial and educational institutions.
The growing number of incidents has extended well beyond university campuses.
On Oct. 19, coffee chain Hollys disclosed that approximately 2.76 million customer information records had been compromised following unauthorized access to its cloud-based membership system. The exposed data included names, birth dates, phone numbers, addresses, email addresses and passwords. The figure includes duplicate records and does not necessarily represent the number of individuals affected.
South Korea's financial sector has also faced a wave of cyberattacks. On Oct. 14, the Financial Services Commission reported that 16 financial institutions, including Shinhan Bank, KB Kookmin Bank and Hana Bank, had experienced cybersecurity breaches, with approximately 100,000 personal information records exposed.
The commission said an emergency inspection of 555 financial institutions had identified security deficiencies at 130 companies, including inadequate authentication procedures, outdated software and insufficient monitoring systems.
Financial authorities have since announced plans to strengthen cybersecurity oversight, expand vulnerability assessments and increase the accountability of corporate executives for security failures.
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