The Ministry of Science and ICT will conduct an ex officio investigation into a breach involving GS E&C’s apartment community facility reservation and management system.

The ministry said on Tuesday it held a meeting of the Intrusion Incident Investigation Deliberation Committee and decided to conduct an ex officio investigation into the GS E&C case.

GS E&C reported the breach that occurred on Oct. 29 in its apartment community facility reservation and management system. The company said it would analyse the incident on its own and did not agree to an investigation by the ministry and the Korea Internet & Security Agency (KISA).

The ministry convened the committee on Tuesday to review the need for an ex officio probe. The committee said a government-level investigation was needed, considering the scale of the information leak and the sensitivity of the leaked information.

The Intrusion Incident Investigation Deliberation Committee is a statutory committee created to enable pre-emptive responses to breaches. The ministry made the final decision after comprehensively reviewing the committee’s deliberation result and the possibility of information leakage and further 피해 occurrences.

The probe will check the extent of damage and the cause of the incident. If it is judged to constitute a major breach during the probe, the ministry plans to review forming a public-private joint investigation team through the committee.