SM and affiliates suffered a hacking breach that exposed employees’ and related parties’ sensitive personal, financial, and legal data.

A large-scale incident has occurred in which SM Entertainment, one of South Korea’s major entertainment agencies (hereinafter, SM), and its major affiliates were subjected to external hacking attacks, causing highly sensitive personal information of executives, employees, and related parties to leak on a large scale. SM said through its official website today (the 8th), “Recently, during the process of internal security monitoring, we confirmed that an external attacker illegally accessed our business systems (such as the electronic approval system) by improper means and leaked some of the document files that had been stored externally,” and apologized, saying, “We sincerely apologize for causing you concern because of this incident.” According to the announcement, this leak incident occurred around the 4th. The leaked items included not only basic personal information such as names, mobile phone numbers, addresses, and affiliations (department/position/responsibility), but also a large number of highly sensitive financial and legal items such as bank account numbers, resident registration numbers, and information written in contracts. The specific items of damage differed by person, and SM is identifying the affected persons and is sequentially notifying them individually via email and text messages. It was confirmed that this hacking damage occurred not only at SM’s headquarters, but also at major affiliates such as Dear U, the IT affiliate that operates the fan communication platform “Bubble,” and Dream Maker Entertainment, which specializes in planning large-scale global performances. SM revealed that it took immediate defensive measures as soon as it became aware of the incident. It explained, “We completely blocked the IP and access route used in the attack and immediately replaced the unauthorized access key to prevent additional information leakage,” and “We are conducting a precise investigation into the exact intrusion route and the scale of the damage in close cooperation with government authorities and external expert organizations.” To date, no cases of secondary damage caused by the leaked information have been confirmed, but SM urged special caution against impersonation voice phishing, smishing, and clicking malicious URLs. In addition, it opened a dedicated consultation desk within the Korea Internet & Security Agency (KISA) to support relief and guidance for damage, and informed affected parties that they may file claims for damages or apply to the Personal Information Dispute Mediation Committee under relevant laws and regulations. SM emphasized, “We take this incident very seriously,” and “Through greatly strengthening access control to internal systems and security monitoring, and through a thorough investigation of the cause and a comprehensive improvement of our security system, we will do our utmost to prevent similar incidents from recurring.” Prior to this, HYBE also recently experienced a large-scale personal information leak caused by an external hacking attack and posted an official apology. ・HYBE apologizes for personal information leak caused by external hacking attack... large-scale damage from names to passport numbers ・From NCT Jeno and Jaemin’s Japanese debut to aespa’s tour! SM announces diverse comeback and tour plans