People close to Hong Won-pyo, the former vice chairman of SK shieldus who is vying to become KT's next CEO, said his resignation as CEO in Apr. was for personal reasons, had nothing to do with the SK Telecom hacking incident or business performance, and was a personal decision.
The SK Telecom hacking incident that surfaced on Apr. 18 occurred due to poor management of internal accounts and failure to encrypt within its self-managed network area, and is unrelated to SK shieldus. Hong's side explained, "The security scope for which SK shieldus signed a contract with SK Telecom involved the external IT network within the external network area, not the internal network, and is unrelated to the SK Telecom hacking."
SK shieldus also argued that SK Telecom's USIM system, where the hacking occurred, was not within the contracted scope and was not directly related to the SK Telecom hacking incident.