South Korea Reports Leak From Its Military Intelligence Command

South Korea was investigating a leak from its top military intelligence command​ that ​local news media said had caused a large amount of sensitive information, including personal data on the command’s agents abroad, to end up in North Korea, its military said Saturday.

The military said in a brief statement that it planned to “deal sternly with” those responsible for the leak. But it declined to confirm the local media reports, pending its investigation of the Korea ​Defense Intelligence Command,​ where the leak took place.

The command, a secretive arm of the South Korean military, specializes in gathering intelligence on North Korea, a heavily militarized country that often threatens ​its southern neighbor with nuclear weapons.

It’s highly unusual for the South Korean authorities to publicly acknowledge a leak from the command​, which is one of South Korea’s top two spy agencies, along with the National Intelligence Service.

The intelligence command runs a network of agents, including those disguised ​as South Korean diplomats or using other undercover identities, in China and other parts of Asia.

The agents often spend years recruiting North Koreans overseas as their contacts. The information they collect augments the intelligence that the United States and its allies collect on North Korea through spy satellites or by intercepting electronic communications.

If personal data about the agents ended up in North Korea, that could seriously damage South Korea’s ability to gather intelligence on the North.

The last time a major breach of security was reported at the command was in 2018, when an active-duty military officer affiliated with the command was found to have sold classified information to foreign agents in China