Key facts
- The file held names, affiliations, positions, dates of birth and passport details of Lee, first lady Kim Hea Kyung and 166 others.
- The file remained accessible on VirusTotal for about five months, and paid members can download uploaded files.
- A ministry official said the leak was believed to have occurred during document handling, not through hacking.
- Possibilities examined include a leak through an outside contractor hired for security checks and one during document exchange with Belgian authorities.
- The ministry said it removed the leaked information from the website and arranged new passports for those affected.
- First Vice Foreign Minister Park Yoon-joo and Belgium's Theodora Gentzis were to meet in Seoul on November 6.
South Korean authorities are investigating how personal information of President Lee Jae Myung and 167 members of his delegation for a June trip to Europe was exposed, the foreign ministry said in a statement on November 6. The ministry said it was examining the circumstances from multiple angles with all possibilities open and was working with police and other agencies.
The presidential office and the foreign ministry said on November 3 that they had discovered the exposure after a file containing details of 168 people aboard the presidential aircraft was uploaded to VirusTotal, a website used to scan files for malware. The file held the names, affiliations, positions, dates of birth and passport details of Lee, first lady Kim Hea Kyung and 166 others, including senior officials, presidential security personnel and journalists covering the presidential office.
The file was uploaded on June 2, about a week before Lee's trip to Belgium, France and Italy, and remained accessible for about five months. VirusTotal allows uploaded files to be downloaded by paid members. A ministry official said the leak was believed to have occurred during the handling of documents related to the trip rather than through hacking.
Among the possibilities under examination are a leak through an outside contractor hired by the ministry for security checks and a leak during the exchange of documents between the South Korean Embassy in Belgium and Belgian authorities. The ministry said it was checking computers and email accounts related to the trip and had taken steps to prevent further damage, including removing the leaked information from the website and arranging new passports for those affected. Authorities are also looking into allegations that other diplomatic documents were uploaded to the website.
First Vice Foreign Minister Park Yoon-joo and Theodora Gentzis, Belgium's foreign ministry secretary-general, were to meet in Seoul on November 6, another official said. The official said various ways to promote cooperation between the two countries would be discussed and that there would likely be communication on the data leak as well.