President Yoon Suk Yeol said Thursday that he ordered former defense minister Kim Yong-hyun to inspect the computer system of the National Election Commission(NEC) when he declared martial law last week.

In a televised address to the nation, Yoon said that in the second half of last year, there was a hacking attack by North Korea against South Korea’s constitutional institutions and government agencies, including the NEC, and the National Intelligence Service(NIS) attempted to check for information leaks and assess the safety of the organizations’ computer systems. 

Yoon continued that all the affected organizations agreed to the checks except the NEC, which adamantly refused on the grounds that it is a constitutional organization.

The president said the NEC later took a step back and agreed to an NIS inspection after a large-scale hiring scandal involving NEC officials.
 
Yoon claimed that a limited inspection by the spy agency found serious security issues in the organization’s computer system, which made it difficult for the people to trust election results since the NEC handles elections. 

The president said he called for measures to address the issue ahead of the general elections in April, but it was unclear whether the improvements were made, which is why he ordered the former defense minister to inspect the system when the country was under martial law.