17,000 DP members' personal data leaked while party remained oblivious for 11 months
The cyberattack, believed to have occurred last September, leaked 17,088 party members' IDs, names, encrypted passwords and email addresses.
Han Byung-do, the acting leader and floor leader of the ruling Democratic Party, speaks at a party meeting at the National Assembly in western Seoul on Aug. 7.
YONHAP
The ruling Democratic Party (DP) belatedly confirmed that the personal information of some 17,000 members of Blue Wave, the online community for party members, was leaked in a cyberattack.
The hacking is believed to have occurred in September of last year, but the DP only became aware of the breach recently, about 11 months later.
The leaked information included 17,088 members’ IDs, names, encrypted passwords and email addresses, the party said on Friday.
The data breach is believed to have occurred on Sept. 2 last year, according to the ruling party. The DP did not detect the hacking at the time and only became aware of it after receiving a tip from a relevant government agency on Thursday.
The DP reported the data breach to the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency’s cyber investigation unit and the Personal Information Protection Commission on Friday and requested a security inspection from the Korea Internet & Security Agency (KISA).
It also launched a security review of its entire system. Han Byung-do, the party’s acting leader and floor leader, ordered security inspections of all DP systems, including Blue Wave.
“We sincerely apologize to our members for causing concern over the leak of personal information,” the DP said in a notice posted on Blue Wave.
The party stressed, however, that the hacking incident is unrelated to the voting system used for its ongoing national party convention.
“The party membership management system and online voting system are separate from [Blue Wave] and are therefore unrelated to this personal information breach,” the DP said. “The online voting system for the ongoing national party convention is currently operating securely.”
BY JEONG JAE-HONG [yoon.soyeon@joongang.co.kr]
This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.
