A classified government document, containing telephone conversations between South Korean and U.S. presidents, was leaked by Chinese hackers, an opposition lawmaker said Saturday.
"I received a report from the National Intelligence Service that a secret document written by the South Korean foreign ministry ahead of the Group of 20 (G-20) Summit in London in April 2009 was leaked to China," Rep. Shin Hak-yong of the main opposition Democratic Party (DP) told Yonhap News Agency by phone.
The document, titled "plans for London G-20 Summit," includes the government's positions and strategies for the international event as well as related intelligence collected by overseas Korean missions, the legislator said.
It also contains a transcript of telephone conversations between South Korean President Lee Myung-bak and U.S. President Barack Obama that took place around that time, he said.
"There were no diplomatically sensitive details in the conversations... but what matters is the fact itself that a secret government document was hacked," he said.
The South Korean government, however, denied the lawmaker's claim, adding that no cyber attack was launched on government officials' email accounts during the months leading to the G-20 meeting in London.
"It is not true that telephone conversations between South Korean and U.S. presidents were leaked," the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade said in a statement. "We confirmed that during the first half of 2009, none of the foreign ministry official's email account was hacked."
The statement added that the South Korean foreign ministry bans its officials from storing files or exchanging emails outside the ministry-designated servers. (Yonhap)