By Jun Ji-hye
An encryption machine used by Korean defense officials was stolen overseas last year, the Ministry of National Defense said Monday.
The belated disclosure raises concerns that the military’s cryptosystem used for transmitting and receiving confidential documents overseas may have been leaked.
According to the ministry, it learned on Oct. 16 last year that the encryption equipment went missing in a foreign country. The ministry refused to disclose the name of the country, citing possible diplomatic disputes.
The equipment had been kept for three years at a local office of the Agency for Defense Development (ADD).
The National Intelligence Service and the Defense Security Command carried out an investigation, but eventually failed to clarify when exactly the equipment was stolen. Investigators also failed to find out who took the machine and why.
A defense official said on condition of anonymity that the device was last used on June 3 of last year. This showed that ADD officials sojourning in that country remained ignorant about the loss of the sensitive item for about four months.
The equipment called “NK-02R” is a fax that changes a confidential document into cryptogram. Another then changes the coded message back to the original message so that it can be read, the official explained.
Critics said the incident could have led to the leakage of the cryptographic system used by the government and military officers sojourning in foreign countries in transmitting and receiving secret documents.
In response, the official said, “It is almost impossible for the cryptographic system to be leaked because a cipher key is supposed to be automatically deleted when somebody attempts to open it.”
He said the government recalled the entire batch of the same equipment, and changed the cryptographic system.
He added that the equipment was rarely used for three years after it was assigned, and the person in charge of managing it has frequently left on business trips, acknowledging that management was of the device was neglected.
One ADD official was disciplined as a result of the missing NK-02R.
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