Personal information of 150,000 people, including hospital directors, hacked and sold overseas for 10,000 won

[Anchor]

The website of the Korea National Tuberculosis Association was hacked last month, and it has been confirmed that the personal information of over 150,000 individuals, including hospital directors, was leaked.

The leaked personal information is currently being sold for about 10,000 won on overseas sites.

Reporter Woo Jung-hwa investigated the security status of public institutions, which are particularly vulnerable to hacking.

[Report]

This is an internet site operated by American hackers.

The price attached to the information file titled "Title 1" is 8 euros, which is approximately 12,000 won.

The file contains personal information such as names and phone numbers of 150,000 individuals, including hospital directors, kindergarten directors, and daycare center directors in Korea.

The Korea Internet & Security Agency, which has been monitoring internet security, confirmed on the 14th of last month that this information was leaked from the Korea National Tuberculosis Association's website.

The hacked personal information that was obtained by the association during the process of providing mandatory online lectures as required by law.

The association posted on its website five days later that there had been a leak of personal information.

The association stated that as soon as they became aware of the hacking, they blocked the access and enhanced security, claiming that there was no further damage.

The association first notified the hacking victims via email, and if that was not possible, they sent text messages.

However, many victims, particularly those in middle-aged and older demographics, do not check their emails and may be unaware of the personal information leak.

[Personal Information Leak Victim/Voice Altered: "I heard your information was hacked... (Me? I haven't heard that...)"]

While the response is an issue, the very low security level of some public institution servers means that such incidents could happen repeatedly.

[Ahn Sang-hoon/Member of the National Assembly Health and Welfare Committee: "In the case of small public institutions, it is often difficult for them to manage on their own, so they tend to outsource. In such cases, public institutions need to comprehensively manage the actual security..."]

There have been 80,000 hacking attempts targeting health management institutions, including the Ministry of Health and Welfare, in the past five years.

This is KBS News, Woo Jung-hwa.