Dozens of KT subscribers suffered hacking damage last month, with several hundred thousand won charged for mobile gift card purchases and transportation card top-ups.
Apart from their commonality as KT subscribers living in Gwangmyeong City, Gyeonggi Province, and Geumcheon-gu, Seoul, the timing and locations of their mobile phone activations were reportedly different. It has also been reported that there is yet to be confirmed evidence that the victims recently installed malicious applications of unclear origin or engaged in activities such as clicking URLs that could be linked to the hacking damage.
According to the cyber investigation unit of the Gyeonggi Southern Provincial Police Agency on the 7th, the number of victims in the KT hacking incident that occurred in Gwangmyeong, Gyeonggi Province, is 26 as of the 2nd. They received messages that unauthorized mobile micropayments had been made in the early hours of the 27th to 31st of last month and reported it to the police. The scale of the damage is said to be around 10 to 20 million won so far.
All the victims reside in Soha-dong, Gwangmyeong City, Gyeonggi Province, and some reportedly live in the same apartment complex. They are all KT subscribers, and it has been reported that the places where they activated their mobile phones were varied. Furthermore, there have been no confirmed cases of the victims installing malicious apps or accessing specific links. This is different from typical smishing (phishing through text messages) crimes.
Subsequently, in the adjacent region of Geumcheon-gu, Seoul, 14 KT subscribers reported hacking damage similar to what occurred in Gwangmyeong from the 26th of last month to the 5th of this month. The damage scale is reported to be around 8 million won.
The police plan to continue the investigation into the pathways through which the victims activated their mobile phones.