South Korean startup platform breach exposes key management failures

In July, South Korea's government-backed startup support platform Modu-ui Changup suffered a data breach after an encryption key was exposed in API responses; attackers using web crawling obtained the key and decrypted personal information and startup idea summaries for roughly 5,000 applicants. Investigators attributed the incident to insecure key management (including hard-coded keys) and recommended re-encrypting data, revoking and rotating keys, auditing access logs, implementing a separated Key Management System (KMS), and notifying affected parties; the report also promotes D.AMO/Penta Security's key management products as preventative solutions.