SK Shielders Hacked…Information Leaked from 120 Companies and Public Institutions

Hacker Lure System Linked to Employee Email Accounts Caused Breach

Choi Soo-jin: "Urgent Security Response Needed to Prevent Further Damage"

 [Provided by SK Shielders]

It has been confirmed that information from 120 private companies and several public institutions was leaked externally due to a hack of SK Shielders.

According to the 'SK Shielders Incident Response Status' submitted by the Ministry of Science and ICT to the office of Representative Choi Soo-jin of the People Power Party, a member of the National Assembly's Science, ICT, Broadcasting and Communications Committee, hackers stole approximately 15 gigabytes (GB) of data.

Initially, the dark web-based hacker group 'Black Tarantula' claimed to have hacked around 24GB of SK Shielders' data, but the scale of the leak identified by authorities so far is less than that.

The incident originated from the hacker lure system (honeypot) operated by SK Shielders, where the personal email accounts of two internal employees were connected in an auto-login state.

It was investigated that hackers stole customer information stored in these emails and posted it on the dark web.

The leaked information includes data from 120 private companies, including SK Telecom [017670] and 15 major financial institutions, as well as information from some public institutions.

SK Shielders, a leading domestic security company, has approximately 7,000 employees, annual revenue of 2.047 trillion won, and serves over 1,200 clients (230 public, 185 financial, and 786 private companies).

The Ministry of Science and ICT sent an official document to SK Shielders on the 18th requesting data preservation and submission for analysis of the incident's cause and is currently conducting an on-site investigation. The Personal Information Protection Commission has also launched an investigation.

Rep. Choi pointed out, "Given that SK Shielders has over 1,200 clients and that security data, including security control systems of financial institutions and public institutions such as SK Telecom, have been confirmed to be leaked, an urgent security response is needed to prevent further damage." Yonhap News