Seventy percent of South Korea’s population between the ages of 15 and 65 and more than half of South Korea’s total population may have had their personal information stolen in a data breach involving 27 million people and 220 million records. Authorities with the South Jeolla Provincial Police Agency announced late last week that it had apprehended a 24-year-old, known simply as Kim, in addition to 15 others connected to the breach.
Officials claim that the 16 individuals illegally circulated the information which pertains to millions of South Koreans between the ages of 15 and 65.
Police claim Kim acquired the information, 220 million records in total, from a Chinese hacker he met online in 2011. That hacker allegedly stole it from online registrations from online game, movie ticketing and ringtone download sites.
The information contains individuals’ names, resident registration numbers, account names and passwords.
According to the English version of a Seoul-based daily newspaper, the Korea Joongang Daily, Kim was able to earn 400 million won ($390,919) by hacking into six video games using the stolen information.
Kim purportedly gave the Chinese hacker whom he initially acquired the information from a $130,000 cut of the money.
Sixteen hackers were arrested on Thursday for allegedly circulating the records and conducting money laundering schemes which earned them at least $390,000.
The hackers targeted registration pages for online gaming and gambling sites and online ring tone and movie ticket stores.
In 2011, South Korea’s largest provider of Internet services and mobile access was hit with a data breach that went on to compromise the data of up to 35 million users. Individuals’ names, email addresses and other data were leaked when SK Telecom’s Cyworld was hit by an attack from an IP address in China.
