[Interview] "Increasing Security Risks... Ironclad Defense Through System Automation and Optimization"

Moon Young-il, Head of KT Information Security Team
Traffic Surge and Growing Converged Businesses
Security Threats Increasing Proportionally
Designing Robust Security Systems
Enhancing Customer Trust

[Asia Economy Reporter Koo Chae-eun] "KT approaches information security as a comprehensive 'system,' automates it, and optimizes it with AI solutions to further enhance customer trust."

Moon Young-il, Head of KT Information Security Division (Senior Executive Vice President), said on the 13th, "As traffic demand increases and 5G convergence and complex businesses develop, the importance of security is also growing." He added, "With the spread of the novel coronavirus infection (COVID-19), network demand has increased and convergence industries have developed, leading to greater security threats. However, as work is optimized through an Agile approach, rapid decision-making has also become necessary. Ultimately, systematizing security has become important."

Agile means that business, development, and operations organizations become a 'one team,' sharing ideas and making quick decisions and executions at every stage from planning to development. Moon said, "Rather than security acting as a 'hurdle,' we are making it a tool that quickly identifies vulnerabilities and optimizes stability so that it can be integrated into the 'Agile' system."

KT, a giant group with 43 subsidiaries, places great importance on overall 'information security' in areas such as external hacking, insider information leaks, and management of group companies and partners. This is why, after painful personal information leak incidents in 2012 and 2014, KT opened a Cybersecurity Center in February 2017 and has been strengthening security capabilities company-wide. In fact, the number of security threats KT faces has been increasing from an average of about 3,000 cases per day last year to about 5,000 cases this year. As non-face-to-face demand increases and traffic surges, security threats are growing worldwide. In July, a record-scale DDoS attack of 809 million packets targeted a major European bank, and cyberattacks aimed at stealing users' personal information are also rapidly increasing in South Korea.

Moon said, "Security threats that exploit malware or network vulnerabilities are also increasing," adding, "We have the motto 'trust but verify everything.' We will build a tight security system to maintain customer trust. We are also strengthening security consulting capabilities in our B2B business."

This is also why KT developed its own AI security monitoring solution optimized for security called 'Friday.' The AI security monitoring technology, which swiftly detects security incidents occurring 24 hours a day, 365 days a year in real time, is showing results. Since Friday was introduced to KT's security monitoring, the number of permanent blocks on high-risk IPs increased from 3,713 in March to 29,274 in June. The time to handle hacking attacks has also shortened. What used to take 492 hours per month was reduced to 220 hours after the introduction of the AI solution 'Friday.' Moon said, "We will continue to accumulate automation and optimization capabilities in the security monitoring area with AI solutions."

Meanwhile, as of this year, KT's investment in the information protection sector amounts to 97.1 billion KRW, and the dedicated personnel in the information protection sector total 324.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.