South Korea's Ministry of Foreign Affairs disclosed on Tuesday that a cyberattack on its Korean National Diplomatic Academy's online education system may have leaked up to 10,000 data records, potentially exposing personal information of all current and retired diplomatic personnel.
Unidentified hackers seized control of the server between April and May 2025 and maintained access until February 2026, when a tip from a related agency prompted the ministry to shut down the system. The compromised data included names, email addresses, user IDs, job titles and passwords of diplomats and staff deployed to overseas missions. The ministry said national identification numbers, mobile phone numbers and home addresses were not affected.
Officials said the exact scale of the breach still requires investigation but acknowledged a considerable volume of data appears to have been exfiltrated. The ministry is treating the incident as a national security matter and has not ruled out the involvement of overseas hacking groups.