The state regulators of South Korea announced on Sunday, January 19, 2014 that personal data of 20 million bank and credit card users have been leaked. The recent incident marks one of the biggest breaches in the country and a number of big firms in South Korea have witnessed customers’ data leaked in the the last few years by either hacking attacks or their own employees.
When it comes to the latest case, an employee from personal credit ratings company Korea Credit Bureau has been arrested and is accused of stealing the data from customers of three credit card companies, while he worked for them as a temporary consultant. Financial regulators in Seoul confirmed on January 19, 2014 that the total number of affected users might be at least 20 million, out of 50 million living in the country.
The data which were stolen include the names of customers, phone numbers, credit card numbers and expiration dates. The Financial Supervisory Service in a statement said that the employee later sold the data to phone marketing companies, whose managers were taken into custody earlier in January 2014.
Investigations into security measures at the companies which have been affected have been launched by regulators. The FCC said, “The credit card firms will cover any financial losses caused to their customers due to the latest accident”. In December 2013, an employee from Citibank Korea was arrested for stealing personal data of 34,000 customers.
Photo Credits: MSN
