Financial firms striving to stem online information leaks

SEOUL, Aug. 25 (Yonhap) -- South Korea's major banks and other financial firms have requested their customers change their online personal identification numbers (PINs) following a series of massive hacking attacks, industry sources said Thursday.
According to the sources, local banks, card firms and other financial institutions have notified their customers to alter their PINs needed for online financial transactions in a bid to stem possible information leakage.
The move comes on the heels of a series of online security breaches that took place on local financial firms and a popular Internet portal this year.
In late July, two popular Web sites operated by SK Communications Co. were hacked, causing the private information of 35 million users to be leaked. The cyber attack was the worst online breach ever in the world's most wired country.
Consumer finance firm Hyundai Capital Services Inc. and the National Agricultural Cooperative Federation, or Nonghyup, were also attacked by hackers early this year, in which customers' personal data was stolen and online transactions crippled.
The financial watchdog unveiled a set of measures in June to require that local financial firms beef up their computer security, saying that it will reprimand people in charge of financial institutions more severely if serious computer security-related problems crop up.
sooyeon@yna.co.kr