Anchor: The government held an emergency press conference in response to growing public anxiety following recent breaches of major financial and telecommunications companies. Officials pledged regulatory changes that will allow authorities to investigate even in the absence of corporate reports and impose fines on those found responsible.
Choi You Sun reports.

Report: The government is putting its foot down in response to a series of digital attacks targeting the nation's leading mobile carriers, SK Telecom and KT,  as well as major financial firm Lotte Card.

At a press conference on Friday, the ICT ministry and the Financial Services Commission(FSC) said the government is taking the digital attacks seriously.

The ministry pledged to reexamine the nation's overall security and beef up preventative measures.

It vowed to improve related systems to enable the government to initiate an investigation when it detects evidence of a data breach, even if the firm involved has yet to file a report.

The FSC acknowledged that the financial sector has failed to promptly respond to rapidly advancing hacking methods and promised to impose penalties on those responsible, corresponding to the adverse impact of the attacks.

The regulator also said it will reinforce the authority of chief security officers and strengthen systems of customer disclosure.

Meanwhile, KT, the mobile carrier at the center of a recent micropayment fraud incident, reported to authorities late Thursday that it had detected four separate traces of server infringement and two suspicious incidents.

The Korea Internet and Security Agency, which received the report and has since begun to analyze the carrier's data, said that it is still too early to identify the targeted server.
Choi You Sun, KBS World Radio News.