South Korea's National AI Strategy Committee said on Wednesday it had launched the National Cyber Resilience Enhancement Task Force to strengthen the capacity to maintain and restore national critical infrastructure and essential services against cyberattacks.

The launch follows the committee’s third meeting on Nov. 6. The panel said AI advances are automating and intensifying cyberattacks, driving the need to go beyond prevention and defense and secure service continuity and rapid recovery after breaches occur.

The task force is led by Lee Won-tae (이원태), chair of the committee’s Security Special Committee, and comprises 11 private-sector members, including members from the Security and Regional Special Committees and the National Defense and Security, Public AX and Global Cooperation subcommittees. Related government bodies including the Ministry of Science and ICT, the Ministry of the Interior and Safety, the Ministry of Climate, Energy and Environment, and the National Intelligence Service are also participating.

The task force plans to analyze AI-based cyber threats and policy gaps in existing response systems, and to identify policy tasks for maintaining, substituting and restoring national core functions and essential services.

It will also review a support system that links vulnerability assessments to guidance on improvements and recovery measures, drills and verification of actual recovery, focusing on sites with limited security response capabilities such as small and medium-sized enterprises and regional living facilities.

Based on that work, it plans to prepare a draft national cyber resilience strategy for the era of superintelligence and an implementation roadmap for 2027 to 2028 by the first quarter of 2027. The draft strategy is to include at least 10 core implementation tasks, at least 20 vulnerability assessment items and at least three disruption and recovery scenarios for key infrastructure such as AI data centers.

Lee said, "In the AI era, along with the capacity to block attacks, the capacity to ensure that people's daily lives do not stop even if we are attacked is important." He added, "We will prepare measures to strengthen national cyber resilience that actually work, from core infrastructure to digital environments closely connected to people’s daily lives."

Ha Jung-woo (하정우), the committee’s standing vice chair, said, "To deliver outcomes from this task force, I will bring together the capabilities of relevant ministries and the private sector and personally see things through from identifying core tasks to implementation."