Bank of Korea CBDC pilot skipped independent security audit, report says
South Koreas first CBDC pilot has been conducted without any independent government security inspection, with participating banks relying mainly on their own pre-launch reviews before testing began. South Korean newspaper Maeil Business, citing data submitted by the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) to People Power Party lawmaker Lee Heon-seung, reported that financial authorities did not carry out separate security inspections during the first phase of the Bank of Koreas central bank digital currency (CBDC) pilot, which ran from April to June last year. Instead, the only security work completed before the pilot started consisted of an IT security review and vulnerability assessment carried out in February. According to the report, those reviews relied partly on self-inspection teams from participating lenders Woori Bank and NongHyup Bank alongside the Financial Security Institute and cybersecurity firm SK Shields. The arrangement has raised questions because institutions taking part in the pilot also helped assess the security of the systems being tested. According to the documents reviewed by Maeil Business, no evidence was provided that an independent government inspection or external audit took place after the pilot concluded. Report raises questions over independent oversight The report said the Bank of Korea later addressed security concerns in its published report on the
