Only 305.03 billion won of 438 billion won budget spent
The 20 financial firms with the highest number of IT system failures last year spent only 69.6 percent of their cybersecurity budgets, according to Yonhap.
The 20 firms had a combined cybersecurity budget of 438 billion won ($327 million) last year, of which only 305.03 billion won was actually spent, leaving the execution rate at 69.6 percent.
Among the 20 firms, Woori Bank recorded the lowest execution rate at 53.8 percent, spending 42.33 billion won of its total 78.66 billion won budget.
KB Kookmin Bank, which recently confirmed a data breach through an AI agent hacking incident, spent 39.3 billion won out of 67.61 billion won — an execution rate of 58.1 percent, remaining in the 50 percent range.
Hanwha Life Insurance and Suhyup Bank also posted execution rates of around 60 percent, at 58.1 percent and 60.7 percent, respectively.
Seven of the top 20 firms cut their cybersecurity budgets this year compared with last year. Woori Bank's budget fell 21.7 percent to 61.57 billion won from 78.66 billion won last year. Citibank Korea reduced its budget 18 percent, from 8.9 billion won to 7.3 billion won, while Shinhan Bank cut its budget 10.4 percent, from 45.29 billion won to 40.59 billion won.
Hanwha Life Insurance, Korea Development Bank, K bank and Standard Chartered Bank Korea also trimmed their cybersecurity budgets, by 2.8 percent, 2.2 percent, 1.7 percent and 0.9 percent, respectively.
kimstar@heraldcorp.com
