Seoul:The personal information of approximately 39,000 customers and employees has been leaked from Mirae Asset Securities Co., a leading brokerage house in South Korea, as confirmed by the company on Saturday.
According to Yonhap News Agency, the leak involved the account numbers of around 3,800 customers and personal details of over 35,000 current and former employees, alongside contractors. The unauthorized external access occurred on Wednesday and Thursday, targeting the firm's mobile web phone authentication login service and internal system.
The compromised data includes names, employee ID numbers, email addresses, mobile phone numbers, and passwords. Mirae Asset Securities reported that it immediately blocked the affected access routes following the detection of suspicious activity from external IP addresses and activated its emergency response system.
The company has informed the Financial Services Commission, the Financial Supervisory Service, and the Personal Information Protection Commission about the incident. This breach follows similar data leaks from its sister companies, such as Mirae Asset Life Insurance.
The Mirae Asset Securities breach is part of a broader trend of data leaks within the financial sector. The Financial Services Commission reported that over 470,000 personal data records have been leaked from 37 financial entities in the past month, with estimated financial losses amounting to 1 billion won (approximately US$745,000). Since September 30, 40 data leak incidents have been reported among 37 companies, including commercial banks, financial investment firms, insurance firms, and savings banks.