South Korea's Ministry of Science and ICT said on Thursday that 6 international standards and 2 technical reports proposed by Korea were finally approved at an International Telecommunication Union Telecommunication Standardization Sector (ITU-T) Study Group 17 (SG17) meeting on information security held in Geneva from June 1 to 10.

It said 14 new standardisation items were also approved, and 7 international standards were pre-adopted. International standards are confirmed after approval of a new standardisation item, followed by standard development, pre-adoption, international circulation and final approval procedures.

The finally approved international standards include software supply chain security threats and security guidelines for digital collection services using distributed ledger technology. Two technical reports, including a distributed ledger technology security standardisation roadmap, were also finally approved.

The meeting drew about 477 experts from 60 member countries worldwide, both online and offline. Korea formed a delegation of 59 experts from industry, academia and research institutions to push for 64 domestic information security technologies to be reflected in international standards. Domestic companies including Giwon Tech, Estorm, iSci Lab, IN Soft, FNS Value, RaonSecure, Dualos, Potatonet, Hyundai AutoEver, Hyundai Motor and KT also joined the delegation.

Six international standards, including software supply chain security threats and security guidelines for digital collection services using distributed ledger technology, were finally approved. Two technical reports, including a distributed ledger technology security standardisation roadmap, were also finally approved. Distributed ledger technology is a technology in which participants jointly record and manage ledger data that records transaction details, rather than using a central server.

It also won approval for 14 items as new standardisation items, including a multimodal artificial intelligence-based security framework for internet of things devices, IMT-2030 (6G) network security technical requirements, implementation guidelines for age assurance systems, an ID management mechanism for AI agents using decentralised ID systems, a security framework for physical AI systems, and requirements for malicious URL collection and detection in cyber threat analysis.

Seven items, including AI system security requirements that Korea has led for years, a security framework for detecting targeted email attacks, and guidelines on zero-trust models and security functions in telecommunications networks, were pre-adopted as international standards.

At the SG17 plenary meeting held in April, a new study question (Q16, AI Security) dedicated to AI security was established after the study scope reflected areas proposed by Korea, including physical AI security. The ministry said it also proposed multiple contributions related to AI security at this meeting to demonstrate its intention to lead international standard development.

In particular, the IMT-2030 (6G) security requirements are the first 6G international standard to be developed within ITU-T. It is expected to be used as key data on the security technology front in the selection process for candidate 6G technologies.

Lim Jeong-gyu (임정규), director general for information security and network policy at the ministry, said, "To have safe AI that can be trusted and used, developing international information security standards is important." He said, "Through this meeting, we showed that our country is leading future core security technology areas such as AI, 6G mobile communications, digital identity and supply chain security."