Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
TENS OF THOUSANDS of South Koreans flooded banks and call centres Tuesday to cancel credit cards following the unprecedented theft of the personal data of at least 20 million people.
Since Monday, more than 1.15 million victims of the country’s largest-ever leak of private financial information have cancelled their credit cards permanently or requested new ones, according to the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS).
The panic has its roots in the arrest earlier this month of an employee from personal credit ratings firm Korea Credit Bureau, on charges of stealing and selling data from customers of three credit card firms while working as a temporary consultant.
Overwhelmed
On Sunday, financial regulators announced that at least 20 million people – in a country of 50 million – had been victims of the data theft.
The data stolen from the internal servers of KB Kookmin Card, Lotte Card and NH Nonghyup Card included names, social security numbers, phone numbers, e-mail addresses, credit card numbers and expiration dates.
The three firms deployed thousands of extra workers to branches and call centres to handle the complaints and cancellations that poured in when the extent of the scam became apparent.
“We’ve been totally overwhelmed for the past two days,” said one official at KB Kookmin Card.
Social networking sites and major internet portals were deluged with complaints about the long wait at bank branches and problems with paralysed websites and call centres.
“I tried the call centre for more than six hours with no success, and eventually had to go to the bank to wait nearly an hour to cancel my credit card,” said one NH Nonghyup customer.
“I’m at Lotte Card (office) to cancel my card. They say I have to wait six hours!” tweeted another angry customer, @casiopea1027.
All special call centres run by the three firms were busy Tuesday and some of their websites could not be accessed at all.
Investigations
Dozens of their top executives have tendered their resignations, while the government is expected to announce special measures aimed at preventing a similar crisis in the future.
Regulators have launched investigations into security measures at the affected firms.
“We will hold them fully responsible for the data leak if their sharing of client data among affiliates and lax internal control turn out to be the cause,” FSS chief Choi Soo-Hyun was quoted as saying by Yonhap news agency.
President Park Geun-Hye has called for strong punitive measures against those responsible for the data theft amid growing concerns among customers that their information could fall into the hands of scammers.
The three firms have said they would fully cover financial losses if their customers fell victim to scams related to the latest data theft.
Official data showed more than nine million clients have logged on to the websites of the three firms to check whether their personal information was stolen.
Many major South Korean companies have seen customers’ data leaked in recent years, either by hacking attacks or their own employees.
An employee of Citibank Korea was arrested last month for stealing the personal data of 34,000 customers.
In 2012 two South Korean hackers were arrested for stealing the data of 8.7 million customers at the nation’s second-biggest mobile operator.
In November 2011 Seoul’s top games developer Nexon saw the personal information on 13 million users of its popular online game MapleStory stolen by hackers.
In July the same year, personal data from 35 million users of Cyworld – the South’s social networking site – was stolen by hackers.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
We should dispatch a Minister next year to Pyongyang for Paddys’s day. Maybe all of them! :)
Both countries run by lunatics !
Really good report. Very few people would have expected a connection with Ireland.
There’s always connections between countries FFS
I was in Pyongyang for a week back in September and our young “minder” didn’t even know where Ireland was so don’t assume the average joe gets to read those reports on the press site. There is no Internet but there is a special intranet which the students in the library can use to look up stuff about the “imperialist” USA. Have to say it was a bizarre week!
Don’t forget, plenty of members of the Workers’ Party, which had links to the USSR, are now high-profile members of the Labour Party.
de Rossa’s letter looking for £1 million is a good example:
http://irishelectionliterature.wordpress.com/2010/07/08/1986-letter-from-the-workers-party-to-the-communist-party-of-the-soviet-union-cpsu-looking-for-funds/
Sssush Ciaran .. some people don’t want to mention these things anymore :-/
Do ‘special activities’ include oifig an phoist and men in balaclava’s or a sponsored silence or what?
Reply from the CPSU your request for 1 million has been granted!!! “Will denomination’s of $100.00 dollar bills be OK ? See you in North Korea …have an empty suit case handy….good luck getting all those Worker Party , Democratic Left now Labour leaders & TD’s elected..see you at the next Lost Revolution Conference!!!!
Wonder what Michael D thought of getting congratulated by Kim Jong
In the 2009 St Patrick’s day greeting, Mr Kim (or his press secretary) seems to be under the impression that the former President was male: “Kim … wished the President … success in his work for the prosperity of Ireland.”
By 2010, the confusion seems to have mounted as Mr Kim opted not to identify Comrade MacAleese with any gender: “… the message wished the Irish President success …”
Great article. Having some diplomatic ties or exchanges between ourselves and countries like DPRK is certainly not something to be embarrassed about. You can’t moan about the insular and secretive nature of such states and in the same vein decry the fact that some degree of civility exists between the two, regardless of politics.
It is better to take many small steps in the right direction.. and all that
He’s no more a lunatic than George W. Bush
Well, both acted with impunity.. that’s where the similarities end, though.
They prob get a load of their info from President of the Korean Friendship Association, Alejandro Cao de Benos .. a Spaniard and total hack for the NK regime .. check out a documentary (I’m sure it’s on YouTube) called Friends of Kim .. you’ll see just how crazy he is
I was in North Korea at the end of November (must have been the last Paddy there before the Dear Leader crocked it!) and agree with Stephen above, most of the North Korean’s I spoke with hadn’t the first clue where Ireland was, never mind keeping a close eye on our current affairs.
Curiously we also did a tour to the museum that houses all the gifts from various nations to Kim Jong Il and there was some very fine Connemara marble on show courtesy of the Irish Workers Party’s trip there a few years back…nothing from Michael D yet, must be still in the post.
The DPRK was an interesting trip, would highly recommend it.
Yet again article of the week goes to Gav Reilly. Love reading his articles, he’s my favorite member of staff in the Journal.
I have heard the Koreans described as the Irish of the Orient – they’ve been under the yoke of a larger and more aggressive neighbour, plus they used to go abroad to work on building sites. While the north of both countries may be ruled by lunatics, it’s a lot easier to cross the border from Newry than Kaesong, and you won’t get thrown in prison for tuning into RTE.
have your say