‘70학번’ 박근혜도…서강대 개인정보 18만건 유출 ‘2차 피해’ 우려

The personal information of approximately 180,000 members of Seoul National University, including current students, faculty, and alumni, was leaked due to an external cyber attack last month. This incident poses a significant risk of "second-degree" crimes, where the compromised data may be used in phishing scams or other malicious activities.

The university only became aware of the breach after three weeks, on March 14, after an unauthorized IP address accessed their systems on February 11. In response, the university immediately blocked the suspicious IP address and restricted access to the affected server.

Among those affected are not just current students and faculty, but also graduates and former students, with their student IDs, academic numbers, names, identities, department affiliations, email addresses, mobile phone numbers, and encrypted combined passwords included in the leaked data. This data breach has sparked concerns about the potential misuse of the information, such as impersonation voice scams and unauthorized access to other accounts using the same passwords.

Professor Kim Myung-ju from Seoul University's Information and Communication Engineering Department warns that the compounded damage from such incidents extends beyond the initial breach.

The issue of university data breaches is not unique to Seoul National University. In December of last year, a similar incident at Hanbat University compromised the personal information of around 10,000 students, faculty, and alumni. In 2024, Pukyong University suffered a data breach affecting 32 million individuals, and Ewha University experienced a leak impacting 80,000 people.

Experts attribute these frequent occurrences to the extensive and interconnected IT systems found in universities, which provide ample opportunities for hackers to exploit security vulnerabilities. At Seoul National University, a shortage of dedicated security personnel and budget constraints have contributed to this growing problem.

Professor Sung Bong-gyu of Hongik University's Electronics Security Engineering Department emphasizes the need for collective support and protective measures at the educational ministry level to address this pressing issue.