Roh Yong-seok, the first vice minister of the Ministry of SMEs and Startups, held a press conference at the Seoul Government Complex on the 22nd and said, "We bow down and deeply apologize for the inconvenience caused by the leak and for not keeping trust in the government," adding, "We will do our best to rescue the damage, prevent a recurrence, and thoroughly investigate the victims." In addition, Vice Minister Roh said, "The first priority is to restore trust through complete supplementation of everyone's start-up platform," adding, "We plan to adjust the timing of the second launch."
First of all, the Ministry of SMEs and Startups will cooperate with the Ministry of Intellectual Property to support all 5,000 people to prove the original trade secrets for free. The original trade secret certification is a system that registers electronic documents containing the contents of trade secrets with the original certification agency to prove the existence, holder, and timing of possession of the trade secret in the event of a dispute.
In addition, free technical appointment will be supported for the next year for those who have registered as a business operator among successful applicants. If companies store key technical data in forestry institutions such as large, small and medium-sized enterprises, the Agricultural and Fishery Cooperation Foundation, and the Korea Technology Guarantee Fund, they can prove their technology development based on this.
In addition, everyone's start-up task force will be upgraded from the start-up country to the mid-term to the mid-term level, and Vice Minister Roh will directly lead the team. It consists of a total of 28 members, including the general team, trend monitoring team, cyber security team, idea protection team, regional management team, and AI solution management team, and plans to thoroughly check the overall operating system.
It is pointed out that the problem has not been properly resolved even though there were reports of similar security vulnerabilities a month before the accident. "On the 7th of last month, we found a serious vulnerability in which applicants' personal information is structured and exposed in response to the application programming interface (API) on everyone's start-up platform," said A, an official at a security company who introduced himself as a first successful candidate and a victim of personal information leakage. "As soon as we found out, we made an official inquiry by organizing the path of re-enactment, scope of impact, and recommendations for improvement." Vice Minister Roh said, "The website developer took its own action on the complaints received, but did not report them to the Korea Start-up Promotion Agency, which is in charge of both the Ministry of SMEs and Startups and the start-up operation," adding, "We will hold the developer responsible for the omission of the report after reviewing the law."
Company B, the developer of artificial intelligence (AI) solutions, is pointed out as the party to the leak. Everyone's start-up provides up to 1 million won in AI solution funding per month, and the company is known to be one of the registered companies that successful applicants can choose from. Vice Minister Roh said, "It is difficult to conclude that (Company B) is the subject of the leak without the results of the investigation, and we excluded it from the AI solution pool due to the violation of the pre-public relations regulations. If the allegation of information leakage is found to be true, we will be held legally responsible." The Ministry of SMEs and Startups requested the National Police Agency to investigate the case.
[Reporter Seo Jeongwon]
