Police are investigating the breaches, according to the New York Times. The Financial Times reports that one official described the situation as a "completely new kind of crisis," a phrase that captures both the technical novelty of the alleged method and the public anxiety Lee is now navigating politically.
What the available sourcing does not yet establish is whether the AI involvement was confirmed forensically or inferred from the attacks' characteristics. Lee's statement is a presidential warning, not a prosecutorial finding, and that distinction matters. If investigators confirm that AI tools were used to automate or disguise intrusions into banking systems, it would represent a documented escalation in the threat model facing financial institutions — one that existing regulatory frameworks were not designed to address.
South Korea's financial sector is among the most digitised in the world, which makes both the scale of potential exposure and the political pressure on the government unusually acute. Whether the investigation will produce evidence sufficient to sustain the president's characterisation remains entirely open.
Gabriel Fenech 
Isla Camilleri 
Alexandre Noir