ATMs installed inside a building in Seoul is seen on Oct. 5.YONHAP
Police have opened a formal investigation into the AI-driven hacking of financial companies on Tuesday, about a week after the attack on Shinhan Bank on Sept. 28.
With AI letting attackers throw wave after wave of break-in attempts at a target, there are calls for the country to build up its capacity to fight cybercrime at a national level.
The National Police Agency's National Office of Investigation booked the case on charges of violating the Information and Communications Network Act. It assigned four teams from its cyberterrorism investigation unit, 28 investigators in all, to the case.
The office is also reviewing whether the case must be referred to the Serious Crimes Investigation Agency (SCIA), which launched on Friday with cybercrime among its areas of jurisdiction.
“If the affected system qualifies as electronic financial infrastructure under the Electronic Financial Transactions Act, the case must be reported to the SCIA,” a police official said. “We have asked the Financial Services Commission for an official interpretation of whether the system qualifies.”
Investigators are tracing back the internet addresses used in the attacks and are working with foreign authorities to track those located overseas. As of Tuesday, the Financial Supervisory Service had identified 19 attacker IP addresses in 12 countries, including the United States, Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore and Vietnam.
ATMs operated by major commercial banks are seen in Seoul on Feb. 3, 2025.NEWS1
Traces of Artex AI, a Chinese-language penetration-testing tool, found at the attackers' IP addresses earlier led some to suggest that China was behind the attacks. But most experts say the tool is open source, so it cannot be used to pin down the attacker.
Identifying who carried out the attacks and how is seen as key to preparing for larger AI-driven attacks. AI hacking fires off indiscriminate attempts over a short period, which makes it harder to defend against than conventional hacking.
“Hackers attack every security vulnerability they can find, and AI makes them dramatically faster,” Kwak Jin, a professor of cybersecurity at Ajou University, said. “A breach at even one point means data gets out, so the burden on defenders can only grow. We need a discussion on how to respond to AI hacking.”
Government systems have also been targets. Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said late last month that an OpenAI agent had broken into a Medicare statistics portal in June and accessed nonpublic files after finding its way around blocks meant to keep it out. Medicare is Australia's public health insurance system.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese addresses the 81st session of the United Nations General Assembly at UN headquarters Sept. 24.AP/YONHAP
“No personal information is believed to have been accessed at this stage, but investigations are ongoing,” Albanese told a press conference in New York. The prime minister called the situation “obviously unacceptable” and said three other systems, including the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, “may be impacted.”
As AI lowers the barrier to hacking, attempts are multiplying. One in four malicious data breaches suffered by 602 organizations worldwide between March 2025 and February 2026 involved AI, according to IBM's Cost of a Data Breach Report 2026, released in July. The share was up 56 percent from the previous year.
Reports are rising in Korea as well. The Korea Internet & Security Agency received 1,236 reports of cyber breaches in the first half of this year, up 19.5 percent from a year earlier, or about seven a day.
The letters AI lay on a computer motherboard in this photo taken on June 23, 2023.REUTERS/YONHAP
Experts say building up the capacity to fight cybercrime is urgent.
“Europe has a well-established system of investigative cooperation for stopping transnational crimes such as hacking,” Kim Do-u, a professor of police science at Kyungnam University, said. “Korea also needs a response system against transnational crime that brings in not only the police and the National Intelligence Service but also the diplomatic authorities.”
Others say security has to start with individual users.
“It is important that everyone, from security officers at each company to ordinary internet users, is security-conscious,” Choi Kyoung-jin, a law professor at Gachon University, said. “Even if it is a hassle, we need to make second-factor authentication, such as one-time passwords, part of daily life.”
This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.
