By Yun Suh-young

The police warned people downloading movies from file-sharing websites to be careful when giving their personal information.

According to police Wednesday, movie downloading sites such as Webhard were hacked and money was taken out from Internet banking accounts of people who had downloaded movies. The websites were peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing sites.

The Cyber Terror Response Center of the National Police Agency issued a warning following several complaints.

The movies downloaded from the file-sharing sites apparently had malignant codes installed within the video clip, which directed users to a fake bank site also known as a “phishing” site. When users clicked on the fake Internet banking website, they were asked to type in their account numbers and security card numbers. Through this method, hackers obtained personal information from the site visitors and took out money from their accounts.

The hackers tricked users to type in their personal information by saying they needed it in order to upgrade the security levels of the Internet banking site. But instead, when they acquired the information, they registered for new authentication certificates to access the account.

“Although the phishing Internet banking websites resemble the real ones, they are actually distinguishable because the homepage addresses are different from the banks. Also, banks don’t ask users to type in the full security card number when entering the bank account,” said an official from the cyber terror response center.

“So anyone asked to fully type in their bank or credit card information should doubt the service.”

Hackers are becoming more skillful in their phishing methods as they infiltrate popular sites and install malignant codes that activate whenever a user visits the website. They are also installing malignant codes onto new and highly sought-after movie files, according to the police.

Police warned users to refrain from giving out their personal information easily because there are cases where banks refuse to compensate those who are scammed as the users themselves are considered partly negligent.