Kim You-won, chief executive of Naver Cloud, delivered a keynote address at "Cyber Summit Korea (CSK) 2026," held at COEX in Seoul on the 17th, stressing that "the risks AI will bring cannot be solved by the strength of any single organization." Kim said, "If attackers have no borders, then neither should defense," adding, "The era of blocking AI attacks at human speed is coming to an end. This is an era in which we must cooperate on security even with yesterday's competitors." The event, co-hosted by the National Intelligence Service and the National Security Research Institute, was held under the theme "A Step Ahead for Global Cybersecurity: A Connected World, Security Together." Delegations from 60 overseas intelligence and security agencies across 33 countries, along with government, corporate and academic officials, attended.
Kim identified the government's "security-specialized AI foundation model" as the linchpin of domestic joint response. Under the project, the government provides national resources such as graphics processing units (GPUs) and pools private-sector AI and security capabilities to develop a model trained on Korea's security environment and industrial context. The plan is to apply it to fields directly tied to national competitiveness — semiconductors, finance, power, science and technology, telecommunications, defense and aerospace — and to extend its use to small and mid-sized companies that struggle to invest in security on their own.
He presented "Cyber Security for All" as the direction security should pursue in the AI era. "Safety must not be a privilege granted only to a few. It must reach everyone, from the largest organizations to the smallest," he said. "Any threat can be handled better if we stand together across borders. We are stronger together than alone."
National Intelligence Service Director Lee Jong-seok, in his opening remarks, defined cybersecurity as core infrastructure of the AI era and called for worldwide cooperation. "Cybersecurity is a common language connecting the entire world, and it can only function properly when everyone protects it together," he said. "When we share threat intelligence, exchange response experience and jointly advance technology and policy, a connected world can become safer." Lee added, "Security is not an obstacle that holds back innovation but an essential condition for sustaining it." He said, "Under this recognition, our government is strengthening its whole-of-government cooperation framework and expanding private-sector partnerships and international coordination. The NIS, at the front line of national cybersecurity, will also upgrade its systems to detect threats faster, analyze them more accurately and respond more closely."
Experts at the event said corporate internal security response systems must change as AI accelerates attacks. They pointed to organizational structures — in which security teams cannot decide on system changes alone — rather than technical limits as the factor slowing response times. Choi Jae-ho, executive vice president at SK Shieldus, said, "Information technology security teams almost never handle patches directly," adding, "Change management is only possible in cooperation with IT infrastructure teams or application business units." The analysis suggests that as AI speeds up attacks, joint response frameworks encompassing not only security teams but also IT infrastructure and business units are becoming more important. Kim Chang-hoon, a professor at Daegu University, advised, "In the AI era, responses by individual institutions or products are no longer enough. We need an architecture, such as common defense principles, that connects the entire nation."
