NEC rebuts Pres. Yoon's claims on security flaws

[Anchor]

President Yoon mentioned the issue of the security system of the Election Commission as one of the reasons for declaring martial law.

In response, the National Election Commission rebutted that the previously pointed out security risks were exaggerated and that some vulnerabilities had been addressed.

They criticized the president's statement as a self-denial of the election system in which he was elected.

Go Eun-hee reports.

[Report]

Immediately after the declaration of martial law, the military stormed into the National Election Commission's office and entered the computer room.

[Moon Sang-ho/Commander of the Army Intelligence Command/Dec. 10/National Assembly Defense Committee: "Our mission was to go to the Election Commission and confirm the location of the computer room. Then, we were to guard it and hand it over to another team when they arrived..."]

The president revealed that the background for deploying the military was due to the Election Commission's security being weak, prompting a directive to inspect the computer system.

In October of last year, the security issues of the Election Commission were continuously pointed out, including an incident where a staff member's computer was infected with malware, leading to some information being leaked.

In particular, a security consulting report conducted by the National Intelligence Service last year indicated that election manipulation was possible, igniting controversy over election fraud.

At that time, the National Intelligence Service stated that North Korean hackers had infiltrated the internal network of the Election Commission and could manipulate the voting and counting results.

[President Yoon Suk Yeol: "I was shocked after receiving the report from the National Intelligence Service. How can the public trust the election results when the computer system managing the elections, which is the core of democracy, is so flawed?"]

However, the Election Commission emphasized that while "some vulnerabilities were found" in the security consulting results, "no traces of election system breaches due to North Korean hacking were discovered."

They also stated, "It would require multiple internal accomplices for actual election fraud to occur," criticizing the president's statement as "a self-denial of the election management system in which he was elected president."

In January, they re-evaluated the security system together with the National Intelligence Service, stating that all previously pointed out issues had been addressed and that there were no additional concerns.

The Election Commission's position is that even if there are security issues, deploying martial law and military forces to resolve administrative and technical matters is unconstitutional and illegal.

This is KBS News, Go Eun-hee.