A widening series of cyberattacks against South Korean financial companies has exposed a weakness around external systems for banks that could force regulators to redraw the sector’s security perimeter as artificial intelligence (AI) makes those gaps faster and cheaper to find.

The amount of information exposed remains modest compared with some of South Korea’s largest consumer data breaches. Shinhan Bank initially reported that information belonging to about 25,000 customers had been accessed through loan-related services, while subsequent attacks or intrusions affected several other banks and financial companies.

But the government response has expanded far beyond the number of records involved.