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Major Korean firms spend just 0.1% of revenue on cybersecurity: Data

Published: 09 Jul. 2025, 15:40 Updated: 09 Jul. 2025, 16:49

Stock photo of a hacker [GETTY IMAGES BANK]

Major companies in Korea allocated only about 0.1 percent of their total revenues for investments in cybersecurity over the past three years, a corporate data tracker said Wednesday.

According to data compiled by CEO Score, 585 companies that disclosed their cybersecurity spending on a public portal run by the Korea Internet & Security Agency (KISA) invested a combined 2.24 trillion won ($1.63 billion) in information security in 2024.

This figure represents a 28.4 percent increase from 1.77 trillion won in 2022.

Despite the increase, cybersecurity investment accounted for just 0.13 percent of the companies' total revenue of 1,787.3 trillion won in 2024, up slightly from 0.1 percent in 2022 and 0.12 percent in 2023.

By contrast, their investments in information technology, including artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics, rose from 28.8 trillion won in 2022 to 36.1 trillion won last year. Cybersecurity consistently made up only about 6.1 percent of that IT spending during the cited period.

By company, Samsung Electronics spent most on cybersecurity, investing 356.2 billion won last year. Major mobile carrier KT Corp. came next with 125 billion won.

E-commerce giant Coupang invested 86.1 billion won, followed by LG Uplus, with 82.8 billion won and SK Telecom, which reported a massive data breach in April, with 65.2 billion won.

Yonhap