▲ This undated file photo shows South Korea's foreign ministry building in Seoul. (Yonhap)

ministry-hacking attack

Foreign ministry attacked by hacking incident in 2022; no sensitive data leaked

SEOUL, Nov. 9 (Yonhap) -- South Korea's foreign ministry said Thursday around four gigabytes of data in its e-mail system was leaked due to a hacking attack last year.

"In January last year, (around four gigabytes) of data stored in our ministry's spam mail interception system was leaked due to a hacking attack via an unidentified hacking path," a ministry official said.

The official said no "secrets" were included in the leaked data, adding it experienced "practically no damage as most of the data was spam mails for personal e-mails."

The official remained cautious about confirming whether the attack was from China, citing challenges in specifying a country solely based on an IP address, as hackers can use multiple routes. An IP address is the online equivalent of a street address or a phone number.

Citing government sources, a local newspaper reported early Thursday that up to 4.5 gigabytes of e-mail in the ministry was leaked due to a hacking attack by Chinese authorities.

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