AI tools may have powered Shinhan Bank breach affecting 25,000 customers
Attackers probably used sophisticated AI agents to breach South Korea's Shinhan Bank, exposing names, phone numbers and financial details of about 25,000 customers, Yonhap reported.
Advanced artificial intelligence tools may have been used in a cyberattack on South Korea’s Shinhan Bank that exposed information on about 25,000 customers, Yonhap News reported on Thursday.
Attackers probably used sophisticated AI agents to probe for vulnerabilities and gain unauthorised access to a service used by loan recruiters, Yonhap said, citing cybersecurity experts.
Shinhan Bank, a unit of Shinhan Financial Group, said on Thursday that an unauthorised external party had accessed certain services and obtained customer information. The lender is investigating the cause, scope and potential impact with authorities and outside cybersecurity experts. Information exposed in the breach included customer names, phone numbers, annual income and borrowing limits, the bank said.
South Korea’s Financial Supervisory Service has begun an emergency on-site inspection to establish the nature and extent of the breach, a spokesperson for the regulator said. The incident comes as another Korean lender faced scrutiny: KB Kookmin Bank said on Friday that personal information of 119 customers had been leaked through an external intrusion, and the Financial Services Commission is set to meet local banks on Friday to discuss the breaches.
Mun Chong-hyun, director at cybersecurity firm Genians, said several recent attacks in South Korea had featured AI tools originally developed and shared for defensive purposes — a “double-edged sword” when repurposed for hacking. “As AI-related technologies advance, source codes are being shared indiscriminately and used for malicious AI hacking attempts,” he said. Sungho Hwang, Korea country manager at NordVPN, added that “generative AI has made these attacks even more convincing.”
The breach is relatively small by South Korean standards — a Lotte Card breach exposed nearly 3 million customers, and a hack of Coupang’s South Korean unit hit more than 33 million accounts.
Sources
- Bloomberg (via Economic Times Enterprise AI): “AI-Driven Cyberattack Exposes 25,000 Customers at Shinhan Bank” — https://enterpriseai.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/industry/ai-tools-linked-to-cyberattack-on-shinhan-bank-exposing-data-of-25000-customers/134637033 (reporting credit: Yonhap News)
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