Seoul, South Korea – The South Korean judiciary is significantly increasing its cybersecurity budget for the upcoming year following a series of high-profile cyberattacks. The move comes after the courts experienced a massive distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack earlier this year and a data breach linked to the North Korean hacking group Lazarus last year.

According to the Kyunghyang Shinmun, the Supreme Court has requested a 43.56% increase in its cybersecurity budget for 2025, from 98.54 billion won to 141.47 billion won. The increased allocation is aimed at bolstering the judiciary's defenses against sophisticated cyber threats.

A significant portion of the additional funds will be used to develop an "intelligent security operation system." This new system will employ advanced technologies to detect and respond to cyber threats more effectively, including hacking attempts and malware attacks. The judiciary is also allocating a substantial amount of the budget to purchase new security equipment and antivirus software, as well as to enhance security monitoring.

A spokesperson for the Supreme Court said, "The recent cyberattacks, including last year's data breach and this year's DDoS attack, have highlighted the urgent need to strengthen our cybersecurity measures. The increased budget will allow us to implement more advanced security systems and improve our overall security posture."

The DDoS attack that occurred in July 2023 was one of the largest ever experienced by the South Korean judiciary, temporarily shutting down the websites of courts nationwide. The previous year, a massive data breach exposed 1,014 gigabytes of personal information, which was attributed to the North Korean hacking group Lazarus.

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