The police have initiated a pre-investigation regarding allegations that KT obstructed the government’s investigation into unauthorized small payments and hacking incidents. On the 16th, the Anti-corruption Economic Crime Investigation Unit of the Gyeonggi Nambu Provincial Police Agency announced that they had begun an internal investigation after receiving the case from the National Police Agency the previous day. This internal investigation was requested by the Ministry of Science and ICT. At a national audit held at the Government Complex Sejong on the 13th, the Ministry of Science and ICT stated, “It seems that KT intentionally obstructed the government investigation into unauthorized small payments and hacking incidents, so we requested the police investigation on the 2nd.”
Previously, on July 19, the Ministry of Science and ICT received a hacking report from an anonymous white hat hacker and the next day informed KT about the hacking circumstances and requested the submission of relevant data. However, it turned out that KT falsely reported the server disposal schedule. Although KT stated the server disposal date as ‘August 1st,’ in reality, the disposal took place sequentially from the 1st to the 13th of the same month. Additionally, KT did not report the backup logs of the disposed server to the joint investigation team until the 18th of last month.
The Ministry of Science and ICT also considers KT’s initial response to the unauthorized small payment incident to be inadequate, citing poor management, such as illegal micro base station (femtocell) equipment connecting to the official network. Consequently, the Ministry of Science and ICT, along with the police and the Personal Information Protection Commission, is investigating KT’s initial response, the origin of equipment used in the crime, and the path of small payment authentication information theft.
On October 10, the police, upon the request for investigation from the Ministry of Science and ICT, directed the Gyeonggi Nambu Provincial Police Agency, which has jurisdiction over Bundang District in Seongnam City where KT’s headquarters is located, to investigate the case. The Gyeonggi Nambu Provincial Police Agency will examine whether KT intentionally obstructed the government investigation and will consider whether to apply charges of obstructing official duties by deceit.
Meanwhile, as of the 13th, 220 victims of KT’s small payment and hacking incidents had been reported to the Cyber Investigation Unit of the Gyeonggi Nambu Provincial Police Agency, with damages amounting to about 140 million won. KT had reported on the 23rd of last month that there were a total of 362 victims of unauthorized small payments.