South Korean Police Probe Bank Data Breaches

South Korean police are investigating a series of cyberattacks on financial institutions after banks disclosed customer-data breaches, while cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike said the activity may have involved an AI penetration-testing tool and a financially motivated, Chinese-speaking actor. Authorities have not identified a suspect, and CrowdStrike cautioned that details it found about a possible attacker do not establish the person’s identity or location. Shinhan Bank said about 25,000 customers’ personal information was compromised, and KB Kookmin Bank reported that information belonging to 119 customers was leaked. Some reports described attacks across at least five lenders, while others cited at least nine banks or seven financial firms; the full number of affected institutions and customers remains unclear. CrowdStrike said it assessed with moderate confidence that the actor was likely Chinese-speaking and financially motivated. It based that assessment in part on the use of ARTEX, an open-source penetration-testing agent developed in China, and Chinese-language prompts found in activity associated with the attacks.