KT to invest over $720 mn in information security over 5 yrs

KT CI

South Korean mobile operator KT Corp. announced on Tuesday that it will invest over 1 trillion won ($720.5 million) in the information security field over the next five years.

Of the entire investment, 20 billion won will be spent on global security collaboration, 340 billion won on strengthening zero-trust architecture and security monitoring, 50 billion won on expanding dedicated security personnel, and 660 billion won on maintaining and improving information security disclosures.

KT manages the entire customer information protection process under the K-Security Framework, its proprietary security system.

The company operates both K-Offense. which simulates hacker intrusions, and K-Defense, which counters these attacks. KT aims to prevent security breaches in advance by repeatedly conducting exercises based on real-world attack scenarios. It will also collaborate with global cybersecurity firms to design AI-based future security architecture alongside operating Korea’s first integrated cybersecurity center that combines IT and network infrastructure.

The company plans to commercialize its upgraded KT AI Voice Phishing Detection 2.0. in the second half of 2025. This service, developed in cooperation with the National Forensic Service, uses AI trained on over 25,000 voice phishing audio samples to analyze phone conversations in real time, detect signs of fraud, and issue warnings or alerts. The current detection accuracy rate is 91.6 percent, and the aim is to raise it to 95 percent.

KT is also enhancing short message service (SMS) spam blocking using AI and has increased daily spam blocking by over 150 percent by automatically registering spam-related keywords.

The company has developed and operates its own AI Clean Messaging System, which learns from spam reports to block harmful URLs, messages, and phone numbers. The system has boosted daily spam number blocking by 66 percent since implementation.

KT is also reinforcing corporate security by using a database that contains the latest threat intelligence to block DDoS attacks and maintains the largest defense capacity in the industry for inbound traffic from overseas. The company plans to more than double its DDoS defense capacity by the end of 2025.