SEOUL: South Korea is investigating an online leak of passport details belonging to President Lee Jae Myung and more than 160 other officials, a government minister said on Nov 3.
Local media reported on Nov 2 that a computer file containing personal details, including the passport numbers and dates of birth of the first couple and senior officials accompanying Lee on an overseas trip, had been uploaded to a website in June.
The file was reportedly uploaded to VirusTotal, a malware-scanning platform, ahead of Lee's visit to Europe, and remained accessible for nearly five months.
It remains unclear who uploaded it and why.
The foreign ministry has since renewed the passports of all those affected, including Lee, and had the exposed information removed from the website, ministry spokesman Park Doo-soon said at a news briefing on Nov 3.
"The foreign ministry is now working with the National Police Agency and other agencies to determine how the information was leaked," he said.
Park said the ministry was treating the incident as a data leak rather than a hacking attack, and was examining computers and email accounts used to prepare the presidential trip.
The leak was a "serious matter that must not be taken lightly", Presidential Chief of Staff Lim Kwang-hyun told an emergency meeting on the breach, according to Lee's office.
The incident has raised the “need for a thorough investigation into how the leak occurred, the extent of the information exposed and whether any actual harm had resulted", he said. – AFP
