Seoul: Sogang University in South Korea’s Seoul has reported a cyberattack in which personal information belonging to around 180,000 students, graduates, faculty members and other individuals was reportedly compromised.
The university said on Saturday that it had confirmed a data breach involving its integrated login account system following an attack by an unidentified external source. The compromised information reportedly includes student identification numbers, names, affiliations, mobile phone numbers and passwords.
University officials said they detected the incident on Friday, three days after the attack took place. Following the discovery, the institution blocked the IP address associated with the attack and initiated emergency measures to prevent further unauthorised access.
The university has also reported the incident to South Korea’s Personal Information Protection Commission and the Ministry of Education. Officials said they are currently examining vulnerabilities in the university’s internal servers as part of their response.
“We are now checking vulnerable points in the internal server,” a university official said. The institution is also working with an external cybersecurity company to strengthen its monitoring systems and introduce additional measures aimed at preventing further damage.
Former South Korean President Park Geun-hye is believed to be among those whose information may have been affected. Park graduated from Sogang University in 1974 with a degree in electronics engineering. Her student identification number, which was made public during her 2007 presidential campaign, reportedly generates a confirmation message when entered into a website created to check whether personal data was compromised.
The incident has raised concerns about the protection of personal information held by educational institutions, particularly as universities maintain large databases containing details of students, alumni and staff.
Sogang University is a private Jesuit research university located in Seoul’s Mapo district. It was founded on April 18, 1960, by the Society of Jesus and is recognised as the oldest and only Jesuit institution of higher education in South Korea.
This report was published from a wire feed. Apart from the headline, the EdexLive Desk has not edited the copy.