KT said on May 10 it joined the international cyber defence exercise 'Locked Shields', hosted by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence (CCDCOE), for the second consecutive year.

Locked Shields is the world's largest real-time cyber attack and defence drill, held annually since 2010 by NATO's cyber defence centre to strengthen crisis-response cooperation among member countries. This year, 47 South Korean public, private and military organisations took part from April 20 to 24. KT was the only domestic telecom operator to participate.

KT tested its integrated response capabilities as an operator of a national backbone communications network. KT is strengthening its real-world response capabilities around its security specialist organisation, the Red Team, which tests the effectiveness of security systems from the perspective of an actual attacker.

KT's Red Team tests possible intrusion routes and the responsiveness of defence systems based on the tactics and attack techniques used by real hacking groups. It also works with the Blue Team, covering detection, monitoring and incident response, to continuously confirm the effectiveness of the company's overall security system.

KT took part in this Locked Shields exercise as part of a South Korea-Hungary joint team, carrying out defence roles in key areas including satellite communications infrastructure, Windows server security, web service security, and digital forensics and incident response (DFIR). It posted strong results in DFIR in particular, demonstrating practical cyber defence and analysis capabilities. Last year, it joined a South Korea-Canada joint team and defended a fictional country's 5G network and key information and communications infrastructure.

KT is also strengthening systems to automate vulnerability assessments, improve analysis efficiency and raise verification quality to address the possibility of AI-based attack automation. It is focusing its capabilities on securing a 'Cyber Resilience' system that maintains service continuity even after an incident occurs, beyond security focused on simple detection and blocking.

Lee Seong-hwan (이성환), head of KT's information security planning group, said, "KT will continue to advance its global-level security response capabilities based on the communications infrastructure protection experience and security expertise it has accumulated as an operator of a national backbone communications network."