[Digital Today reporter Jin-ho Lee (이진호)] The Ministry of Science and ICT has formed a public-private joint investigation team in connection with a security incident involving enterprise software provider Douzone Bizon and has begun examining the cause and the scale of damage.

The ministry said on Oct. 26 it formed the joint team on Oct. 25 to look into the incident involving Douzone Bizon.

Douzone Bizon provides enterprise software such as enterprise resource planning (ERP), finance and accounting, and groupware. Douzone Bizon reported the incidents twice, on Oct. 16 and Oct. 21. The ministry and the Korea Internet & Security Agency (KISA) demanded that related materials be preserved immediately after the reports and have conducted an investigation into the cause of the incident and the scale of damage.

Based on this, the ministry convened an emergency meeting of its deliberation committee on investigations into security incidents on Oct. 25. The committee judged the incident to be a serious case and agreed that a public-private joint investigation team was needed. The deliberation committee is a statutory body newly established for pre-emptive responses to security incidents.

The ministry made the final decision to form the joint team after comprehensively considering the committee's review results, the possibility of damage spreading to Douzone Bizon's client companies, and the broader impact. The team is headed by the ministry's director-general for information protection and network policy and includes officials from the ministry and KISA, as well as private-sector experts in cyber security and systems and networks.

The ministry said it plans to thoroughly investigate the cause of the incident and the extent of damage through the joint team and to transparently disclose the results to the public.