South Korea ministry reports diplomatic training breach

South Korean officials have disclosed that hackers breached a government online training system for ten months, potentially exposing the personal information of thousands of current and former foreign ministry employees, including diplomats stationed abroad. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced the incident on July 20, 2026, stating that an unidentified threat actor exploited a previously unknown vulnerability in the Korea National Diplomatic Academy's server beginning in April 2025 and maintained access until early February 2026.

The compromised e-learning platform, launched in 2022 to support remote training, contained approximately 10,000 personnel records. These included data on serving and former diplomats, administrative staff, and officials from other government agencies dispatched to overseas missions. The ministry confirmed that the stolen information includes user IDs, names, email addresses, and encrypted passwords, along with official job titles and departmental affiliations. It stated that more sensitive data, such as national identification numbers, mobile phone numbers, home addresses, and photographs, was not stored on the system.