Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power (KHNP, CEO Cho Seok) decided to increase the number of staff shifting for radiation safety management from five to ten, as a follow-up to the recent employee ID exposure incident. KHNP said on Oct. 16, “We are determined to improve our organizations extensively, ranging from overall work processes in radiation safety management to facility operations.”
On Sept. 25, some nuclear power plants allowed subcontractor employees to use IDs and passwords that allowed access to the internal KHNP network. This has developed into a controversy.
At Hanbit Nuclear Power Plant, an employee of an outsourcing company responsible for radiation management logged into the internal network under the name of an employee of KHNP on Sept. 25.
The KHNP employee allowed the constractor to use his ID for simple convenience. However, this was extremely shocking, since accessing the internal network of KHNP actually enables users to search for the blueprints of nuclear power plants, which are classified as national security secrets.
Not only at Hanbit Nuclear Power Plant, but also at some facilities of Kori Nuclear Power Plant, similar security breaches occurred.
Yoon Sang-jik, minister of Trade, Industry and Energy, said, “I became aware of this KHNP employee ID exposure incident through the audit team. I take this very seriously. I will recheck the overall information security system in all public corporations, not limited to KHNP.”