Yoon Geon-young: "North Korea Hacked Presidential Office Administrator's Email... Work Discipline Collapsed"

"Zero Internal Security Awareness
Requesting Data from NIS...
Will Report Contents and Convene Intelligence Committee"

Interview_Yoon Geon-young, Former Director of the Blue House National Situation Room./Photo by Kim Hyun-min kimhyun81@

Regarding the fact that the email of a presidential office administrator was hacked by North Korea, Yoon Gun-young, a member of the Democratic Party of Korea and former member of the Moon Jae-in administration’s Blue House National Situation Room, criticized on the 15th, saying, “It is a collapse of work discipline.” Yoon pointed out, “The messages and schedules of the presidential office are top-secret, but this happened because the internal security awareness is zero.”

On the same day, Yoon appeared on ‘MBC Kim Jong-bae’s Focus’ and said, “I understand that the administrator in charge was dispatched from a government ministry, but considering that only the ace of that ministry is sent to the presidential office, this means that such incidents are widespread in the presidential office.”

The administrator in question belonged to the Presidential Office’s Industrial Secretary Office and was responsible for overseas trip duties related to economic schedules. In this process, he used both the presidential office email and the portal site Naver email interchangeably, and it is known that North Korea hacked the Naver account. The hacked email contained President Yoon’s UK trip schedule, event details, and messages from President Yoon.

Yoon also pointed out that using Naver email and presidential office email interchangeably was a major problem. He said, “At the Blue House, official mail and external mail must be distinguished. During the Moon Jae-in administration, official mail was used, and personal external mail was strictly prohibited, so such incidents did not occur.” He mentioned, “Using external mail increases the risk of hacking, and hacking attempts cannot be detected. The damage inevitably expands exponentially.”

He continued, “(The presidential office’s explanation that it was due to personal negligence) is really a ridiculous and meaningless excuse,” and criticized it by saying it was like losing all belongings to a thief but only reporting to the police thoroughly. Yoon said, “This incident should be subject to investigation,” and added, “It is an unacceptable matter. Considering that they tried to hide it for three months before the media reports, a comprehensive investigation is necessary.” He said, “We requested data from the National Intelligence Service to accurately grasp the situation, but they have not provided the data yet,” and added, “If necessary after reviewing the contents, I am considering convening the Intelligence Committee.”

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