Yet another cyber attack resulted in a massive amount of personal data being taken from 8.7 million people in South Korea. The victims were subscribers to the wireless provider KT Corp, which is the second biggest wireless company in that country; KT Corp has a total of 16 million subscribers.
The data collected by the hackers was over a period of five months and included names, phone numbers, and resident registration numbers. KT Corp apologized to its customers today, stating, "In light of this incident, we will strengthen the internal security system and raise awareness of security among all employees to prevent causing inconvenience to customers."
The good news is that South Korean law enforcement authorities have already arrested and jailed two people as part of their investigation. The Yonhap News Agency reports that one of them is a 40 year old individual that"s currently only known by his family name Choi. An unnamed official stated, "It took nearly seven months to develop the hacking program and (the suspects) had very sophisticated hacking skills."
In addition to the two arrests, the report states that seven other people were booked but not actually jailed. These unnamed people are accused of purchasing the stolen data and then contacting KT Corp customers that were close to having their phone contracts end.
It"s likely that the suspects were trying to gain credit card info by posing as KT Corp employees and getting them to renew their wireless contracts. Law enforcement officials said that these people may have earned at least 1 billion won ($877,000) with their illegal marketing efforts.
Source: Yonhap News Agency