BOK "Mask Sales Disguise and Government Loan Impersonation... Cyberattacks Increase After COVID-19"

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Eun-byeol] Since the outbreak of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19), cyberattacks such as malicious suspicious emails using COVID-19 as a keyword have increased, highlighting the need for countermeasures.

According to the Bank of Korea's "2020 Second Half Financial Stability Report" on the 26th, an average of about 1,500 malicious suspicious emails were reported daily in South Korea after the occurrence of COVID-19 (March 15 to April 30). These emails impersonated mask sellers or the World Health Organization (WHO) and requested donations.

In April, when COVID-19 was spreading rapidly, there was a case where a fraudster pretending to offer government support loans for small business owners related to COVID-19 induced victims to install remote programs on their mobile phones and then withdrew funds. Between June and September, unauthorized payments worth about 10 million KRW occurred at domestic fintech companies such as KakaoPay and Toss. Last month, there was also a case where a fake securities company’s Home Trading System (HTS) showed manipulated stock prices to users and prompted them to deposit additional investment funds.

Similar cases occurred overseas as well. In June, the United States experienced an incident where fake IRS text messages claiming to provide COVID-19 relief funds requested personal information and withdrew funds. In October, ABS, which provides operational services to financial institutions, suffered a ransomware attack resulting in information leakage.

Major countries and international organizations have taken various measures to enhance cyber resilience in response to cyber risks after COVID-19. These include ▲establishing guidelines for pandemic business continuity plans for financial institutions, cyber incident recovery plans, and supervision of response situations ▲strengthening information sharing related to cyber risks after COVID-19 ▲recommending cyberattack simulation tests, among others.

A Bank of Korea official pointed out, "To effectively respond to cyber risks in the future, it is necessary to supplement existing business continuity plans (BCP) and guidelines by referring to cases from major countries, strengthen cyber risk management supervision by financial authorities, and continue internal efforts such as enhancing governance within financial institutions." He added, "Financial institutions should secure sufficient IT personnel and budgets and actively participate in international cooperation systems to acquire related information."

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