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The flag of the National Police Agency. / Photo by Reporter Park Seong-il

The National Police Agency is launched a force-wide cyber security drill designed to counter sophisticated phishing operations fueled by generative artificial intelligence (AI).

The top law enforcement body announced on May 26 that it will conduct its "2026 Hacking Email Response Drill" for all personnel across all police stations nationwide for four weeks, running from May 28 to June 24.

Recent email-driven cyber threats have increasingly weaponized AI to generate highly convincing phishing lures. Attackers routinely masquerade as public institutions or mimic urgent work coordination requests, security inspection alerts, and official document transmissions. As attempts to harvest account credentials and deploy malicious payloads grow more persistent, front-line personnel's initial response capability has become a critical line of defense, the agency explained.

The upcoming drill will replicate real-world operational environments closely. The National Police Agency will blast simulated phishing emails mirroring the latest cyber threat tactics to employees without prior notice. These training emails will be tailored to standard administrative formats frequently encountered in daily routines, including inter-departmental collaboration requests, routine security notifications, and official memo deliveries.

Upon receiving a suspicious message, personnel are required to exercise caution by refraining from opening the email or launching any embedded attachments or hyperlinks (URLs). Should an employee inadvertently open the email, they must immediately report the incident to their internal security department and follow early-stage response protocols.

The National Police Agency intends to comprehensively analyze response metrics and vulnerabilities identified during the exercise to refine future information security training curricula. In particular, personnel who open the simulation emails or click on the test URLs will undergo separate, intensive follow-up training sessions.

"This is not a one-off inspection," a National Police Agency official remarked. "The goal is to foster an organizational culture where employees intuitively spot suspicious correspondence, report it right away, and initiate standard response measures."

                                                                                                            Seol So-young