韩国信息安全人才需求上半年同比激增88%，AI黑客与连续数据泄露驱动网安景气

Korea's Security Talent War Heats Up as Demand Nearly Doubles - Seoul Economic Daily
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Demand for information security professionals in South Korea nearly doubled in the first half of this year, as large-scale personal data breaches hit telecom carriers, online platforms, public agencies and financial firms one after another. With hackers increasingly using artificial intelligence, the hiring surge is expected to continue into next year.
Demand for information security staff rose 88% in the first half from a year earlier, according to data released on the 8th by Remember & Company, a business networking platform. After holding flat from 2022 to 2024, demand climbed 14% last year before the sharp jump in the first half of this year.
The increase spanned every hiring channel and company size. Scout offers rose 96%, headhunting approaches 87% and job postings 82% — all gains of more than 80%. Hiring expanded across the board from large conglomerates to startups, with demand at small and mid-sized companies up 175% and at startups up 156%, a more than 2.5-fold increase in both cases.
Industry officials attribute the surge to the series of large data breaches that began last year. A headhunter at Remember said more companies now view security as a function requiring dedicated staff rather than a management task for the IT team. "The belief has grown stronger that a company needs people in-house who can judge and respond quickly when an incident occurs," the headhunter said.
The shift comes as hackers use AI to find vulnerabilities and speed up the production of phishing attacks and malware, posing a concrete threat to companies. More firms are also showing interest in AI-based security products. An official at Genians said inquiries about solutions capable of countering AI agents have increased sharply since the recent large-scale hacking incidents. An official at AhnLab said reviews of security products that use AI are also on the rise.
Even as AI-based security tools spread, demand for human security staff will keep growing, industry officials said. An official at one security firm said that while AI can handle standardized, repetitive work such as threat classification, analyzing unfamiliar types of threats and making final response decisions remain human tasks. "The trend is to deploy security staff on more advanced work than before," the official said. The more companies use AI, the wider the range of data they must manage.
Demand is rising structurally, but supply remains short. In Cisco's 2025 Cybersecurity Readiness Index, released last year, 97% of Korean companies said they lacked skilled cybersecurity personnel. Another 34% of respondents said they had security positions left unfilled.
"Through next year, demand will grow further for people who understand not only data privacy, incident response and security planning but also cloud and AI environments," the Remember headhunter said.
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Original reporting by
Kim Ji-won
for Seoul Economic Daily.
AI-translated from Korean. Quotes from foreign sources are based on Korean-language reports and may not reflect exact original wording.
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