Announcement comes after Seoul’s defense ministry confirmed it was investigating disclosure of list of military spies
SEOUL – South Korea’s Central Military Court has issued an arrest warrant for an intelligence service employee on charges of leaking military secrets, reportedly to North Korea.
Announcing the warrant on Tuesday, the defense ministry stated that it will not provide specific details about the employee’s alleged criminal activities at this time due to the ongoing investigation.
“The investigation will continue rigorously in accordance with the law and established principles,” a ministry spokesperson said Tuesday.
The issuing of the arrest warrant comes after the defense ministry confirmed on Monday that it was investigating the suspected disclosure of a classified list of South Korean military intelligence agents.
Maeil Business Newspaper reported Friday that classified documents managed by the Defense Intelligence Command (DIC), including sensitive details about military intelligence units such as the Headquarters Intelligence Detachment and human intelligence (HUMINT) operations, were leaked to North Korea.
The newspaper indicated that South Korea has restricted the activities of overseas intelligence agents due to the leak, including recalling some personnel. The breach was discovered about a month ago, according to multiple local media reports.
The South Korean Counterintelligence Command is investigating the incident and reportedly believes that the information was leaked via a personal laptop belonging to a military-civilian public servant in the DIC’s overseas operations department.
The investigation is exploring whether the individual intentionally extracted and leaked the information.
The now-arrested employee, however, claims their laptop was hacked. If the laptop was indeed compromised, the individual would still be culpable for mishandling classified information on a personal device rather than using secure military networks.
Song Jong-seok, a professor of information security at Yeungnam University College’s Cybersecurity Division, told NK News that such a leak would have severe implications for South Korea’s security.
“With the increasing difficulty of gathering information due to encryption and other factors, any disruption to HUMINT operations could lead to a significant loss of expertise and present a major challenge to national security efforts,” he said.
Analysts have also suggested that the breach could undermine trust in South Korea’s ability to protect sensitive information at a time when the country seeks to improve intelligence-sharing and military collaboration with allies and other partners.
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