South Korea’s Ministry of SMEs and Startups is reviewing possible sanctions against Rofom operator Amicus Rex following a personal-data breach, while arranging emergency checks of 49 other AI suppliers, according to Aju Press’s November 15 report.
The proposed measures include removing the company from the government-supported startup project and restricting participation for up to one year. A committee must review the case; no final sanctions decision was reported.
The ministry’s official incident statement said the affected supplier detected signs of an external attack on November 11. Investigators confirmed that personal information belonging to 20,028 people had leaked, including 818 participants in the second round of the Everyone’s Startup programme. Exposed information included names, telephone numbers and email addresses.
The service ran on the private supplier’s own systems. The ministry subsidised access to external AI services, with participants consenting to the provision of information needed to issue accounts.
According to Aju Press, the follow-up checks are due by November 20 and cover data retention, access rights, encryption, vulnerability management and incident response. Suppliers must address deficiencies; further participation restrictions would also require review. The response puts the security of outside service providers under scrutiny alongside the government programme itself.
