Yoon Suk Yeol, the president of South Korea, has confirmed that his office thinks North Korea has hacked into one of its employees ‘ emails.
In the days leading up to Yoon’s three-day trip to Europe in November, where he met with King Charles, French President Emmanuel Macron, and British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, an unidentified member of the presidential staff had his personal email account hacked.
You might be thinking that the hacking of a personal email account is n’t all that bad, given that there is no proof that North Korean hackers were able to compromise the president of South Korea’s official computer systems.
Unfortunately, the office has confirmed that the employee in question used their personal email account for work-related purposes, which was against security protocol.
In other words, he or she had been sending and receiving private email addresses for sensitive official information.
In a statement to reporters, President Yoon’s office stated that” we detected the case in advance of the visit and took necessary measures,” emphasizing that the” security system at the presidential office was n’t compromised.”
According to a government source cited by local media, Yoon’s trip schedule and messages the president sent were both stolen, according to BBC News.
The staff member’s personal email account may have been compromised using a carefully crafted phishing email, which tricked the unwary aide into giving up their password. However, it is unclear exactly how this happened.
It is thought that this is the first instance of a South Korean president’s team member being successfully hacked by North Korean hackers. Cybercrime has long been practiced by North Korea, who, for example, has used the internet to steal enormous amounts of cryptocurrency to pay for its nuclear weapons program.
The South Korean government claims that security measures were implemented after the security breach was discovered prior to the president’s trip to Europe. To prevent future mistakes, these included spreading awareness of cybersecurity issues among office staff.