South Korea’s major lenders are preparing to increase security spending after a wave of data breaches, with Shinhan Bank and Woori Bank reversing earlier cuts. The attacks exposed customer information through systems used by employees and loan agents, affecting even banks that had previously increased their security budgets.
According to figures from the Financial Supervisory Service, Shinhan set aside 40.59 billion won for cyber-security this year, the smallest amount among the five leading banks and a decrease of 10.4 % compared with the previous year. Woori reduced its allocation by 21.7 % to 61.57 billion won. KB Kookmin Bank devoted the highest sum, 86.08 billion won, followed by NH NongHyup Bank with 80.13 billion won and Hana Bank with 63.64 billion won. Altogether, the five institutions’ security budgets rose 3.8 % to roughly 332 billion won.
When measured as a portion of each bank’s total IT spending, Shinhan’s security outlay was the lowest at 9.1 %. Hana led the group with 12.2 %, while NongHyup allocated 10.5 %. Both KB and Woori devoted 9.9 % of their IT budgets to security. The biggest publicly reported breach involved Shinhan, exposing data of roughly 25,000 customers despite its modest budget. KB, which spent the most and raised its funding sharply, also experienced a breach, as did Hana. Although Woori made the deepest reduction, it claimed to have thwarted recent attacks without further customer data loss.
Industry reports show the lenders are now drawing up fresh investments. KB plans to allocate more than 100 billion won to information security next year, at least 16 percent more than this year. Woori is considering increasing its budget for building security systems by more than 20 percent and expanding specialist staffing by more than 10 percent.
Hana is pursuing security projects worth tens of billions of won, with work scheduled to begin from this quarter through next year. NongHyup plans to increase investment next year in server security, artificial intelligence safety testing and vulnerability management.
A Shinhan official said the lender plans to set its security budget at an industry-leading level after reviewing three years of allocations and spending at its own bank and peers, but did not give a specific figure. The bank also plans to retain external security specialists, expand threat detection systems and build an AI-powered security operations center to identify and contain attacks.
“We plan to recognize security as an investment rather than simply a cost and are reviewing various projects to strengthen our information security framework,” Shinhan said.
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