The ministry of science and ICT (information and communication technology) in South Korea says it will develop infrastructure to quickly respond to an increasing number of cyber security threats the country faces.

The ministry is to work with major cloud and data centre companies to collect threat information in real time, compared to the current system which relies on individual reports. Threats will be quickly notified to companies.

The ministry also plans to provide security patches by working with security companies.

As part of the KRW670bn ($600m, €500m) programme through to 2023, the ministry will expand the cyber threat information it gathers to include major social networking services, the dark web, and virtual services such as remote education and digital health care, Yonhap news agency reported.

The ministry said it will “de-identify” any personal or sensitive information to address concerns of user information being abused.

A goal is to reduce the rate of information security violations experienced by local companies to less than 1.5% by 2023, compared with 2% last year.

To accelerate the private sector’s adoption of digital services, the ministry said it will conduct security checks and introduce security solutions to 1,300 small- and medium-sized companies every year.