Korea is taking a leading role in international cybersecurity standardization as multiple technical standards proposed by the government have been adopted at a global conference.
The Ministry of Science and ICT (MSIT) announced Friday that 13 new standardization items proposed by Korea were approved, 13 international standards were preliminarily adopted, and one international standard, one technical report, and one corrigendum received final approval at the International Telecommunication Union Telecommunication Standardization Sector (ITU-T) Study Group 17 (SG17) meeting on cybersecurity held in Geneva, Switzerland, on January 3.
A total of 482 participants from 66 member countries attended the international conference, discussing 221 contributions proposed as international cybersecurity technology standards. Korea submitted 80 contributions, the second-highest after China with 84. The standardization process proceeds in order of new item approval, standard development, preliminary adoption, international review, and final approval.
The 13 newly approved standardization items include security standards for applying end-to-end encryption technology to quantum key distribution networks, security functions enabling selective disclosure of specific information in digital identification, vehicle intrusion detection systems for enhanced automotive security, criteria and requirements for ensuring data reliability in metaverse environments, and development of next-generation security roadmaps.
Thirteen items were preliminarily adopted as international standards, including identity management, power trading systems, and asset management based on blockchain (distributed ledger) technology that Korea has led development on for years, as well as software supply chain security threats. Final approval was granted for an international standard on security function evaluation for mobile devices, a technical report on environment analysis for avatar data protection in metaverse applications, and a corrigendum on security threats and requirements for data access and sharing based on distributed ledger technology.
As member countries agreed to tentatively establish a new research task dedicated to overall AI security technologies including AI native security, generative AI models, deepfake detection, and fine-tuning security, Korea plans to expand its research scope to emerging areas such as agentic AI and physical AI security. The research task will be reviewed at the Telecommunication Standardization Advisory Group (TSAG) international meeting in January next year and is expected to receive final approval at the next SG17 meeting around June.
"For next-generation security fields, roadmap development must precede the start of standard development, and it is significant that Korea is leading in areas such as digital twin and distributed ledger technology," said Lim Jeong-kyu, Director General for Information Security and Network Policy at MSIT. "Through this international conference, Korea achieved both qualitative and quantitative growth. The beginning of AI security standard development represents a new opportunity for expanding the cybersecurity market, and we will work together with experts from industry, academia, and research institutes."
