South Korean President Lee Jae Myung called for a formal investigation Tuesday after stating that AI models appear to have been used in cyberattacks against several major commercial banks, including Hana Bank and KB Kookmin Bank.
South Korean President Lee Jae Myung said Tuesday that he believes artificial intelligence models were used in cyberattacks against several of the country's commercial banks, and called for a formal investigation into the incidents.
Lee made the remarks during a cabinet meeting, where he said signs "emerged of AI being used, causing considerable public concern and anxiety," according to Reuters. The statement marks one of the most direct acknowledgments by a sitting head of state that AI-assisted tools may have been deployed in an attack on the country's financial infrastructure.
Banks named in connection with the incidents include Hana Bank, KB Kookmin Bank, and Shinhan Bank — three of South Korea's largest financial institutions.
The president did not specify the nature of the attacks, the extent of any financial losses, or which threat actors may be responsible. No further technical details about how AI models were allegedly employed were publicly disclosed.
The incidents arrive at a moment when cybersecurity researchers and government agencies around the world have been tracking the growing use of AI in offensive cyber operations. Adversaries have increasingly explored AI tools to automate reconnaissance, craft more convincing phishing campaigns, and accelerate vulnerability discovery.
South Korea's financial sector has long been a target of state-linked hacking groups, particularly those associated with North Korea, which has used cyber operations to generate revenue under international sanctions. South Korean authorities have not publicly attributed the bank hacks to any specific actor.
The call for an investigation signals that Seoul is treating AI-assisted threats to its financial system as a matter of national security, not merely a concern for private institutions. Whether the inquiry will be conducted by national intelligence services, financial regulators, or a dedicated cybersecurity body was not immediately clear.
The episode underscores a broader challenge for governments and the private sector: as AI tools become cheaper and more widely available, the barrier to executing sophisticated cyberattacks continues to fall, placing additional pressure on financial institutions to upgrade their defenses.
Investigators' findings — and whether they are made public — could shape how South Korea and its allies approach regulation of AI in the context of offensive cyber capabilities in the months ahead.
TechEchelon Staff bylines are produced collectively by the newsroom for short, breaking, and wire-style coverage. Longer-form reporting is published under the responsible reporter's name.
More from the Staff →Dell has patched six critical-severity vulnerabilities in its Container Storage Modules, including two maximum-severity flaws that allow unauthenticated remote attackers to gain full administrative control over enterprise storage infrastructure connected to Kubernetes environments.
An international law enforcement operation dubbed "Operation KillSwitch" has dismantled the KillSec ransomware gang, seizing servers and a dark web leak site, arresting three suspects, and identifying a 16-year-old as the group's alleged main operator.
The ShinyHunters extortion gang is bypassing web application firewall rules meant to block exploitation of Oracle PeopleSoft CVE-2026-35273 by using a URL-encoding trick, resuming attacks against organizations across healthcare, government, education, and other sectors.
Written for readers who already know the basics — markets, AI, and the policy decisions that shape both.