Can Internet Win Back Trust After Caltex Leak?
This is the first in a series of articles regarding the lax online security exposed by a string of info leaks. ― ED.
By Tim Alper
Technology Writer
Korean technology has been grabbing the headlines across the world this year. For a country that receives one third of its massive export revenue from technology, most would assume this could only be good news. Unfortunately, Korean IT has taken center stage for all the wrong reasons in 2008.
In a time when IPTV (Internet Protocol Television) is preparing to go live here, papers around the world are not full of stories about Korean Internet TV but are rather reporting on IT misdeeds and security breaches.
Unfortunately, many of these security lapses have come not as a result of computer glitches and cyber terrorist attacks, but have been born of human greed and incompetence. Cheong Wa Dae, the Korean Presidential home, had its security compromised in February, with the blame being apportioned to a member of staff's carelessness.
More recently, Hanaro and now GS Caltex employees have been accused of selling the personal data of their customers to the highest bidder. With Auction website's leak also exposing private details on 11 million of its members earlier this year, all in all, this has been Korean tech's annus horribilis.
However, the fact remains that the Korean economy is dependent on a healthy domestic IT business. Consumer confidence has been dealt a body blow from the alleged Hanaro and GS Caltex leaks, but the big question now is _ can Korean IT find a way back, or has trust been stretched beyond its limits both here and abroad?
Some ordinary Koreans say they have had enough. Kim Eun-hyoung, 28, a postgraduate student in Seoul, says she no longer feels safe online. She explains, ``I'm genuinely scared. My personal data and bank details have been compromised this year. But I've no idea who has my info and what they are going to do with it. Now we are reading that people are selling off our data to goodness-knows-who. I think the Internet is seriously compromising our privacy.''
Such sentiments are precisely what the IT world could do without now ― in times when companies are asking their clients for more digital trust, and ``e-commerce'' business models are becoming the norm.
Yet the inescapable fact is that for a lot of people, in Korea and elsewhere, the Internet represents a way to get rich quick. People look at Google ― only ten years old and already one of the biggest companies on the planet ― and they want in.
Auction and GS Caltex have suffered similar casualties, with both companies reportedly losing info on around 11 million Koreans each, but industry insiders say that there is a vital difference between the two breaches.
Says Mok Ha-young, an IT Team Manager at JoinsM, "Auction said their breach was the result of a virus attack, but it looks like GS Caltex's data was compromised by employees looking to make money. That means companies can no longer point the finger elsewhere.''
Although data breaches through virus attacks and theft are becoming a modern risk, the trend has become a little more sinister in Korea this year, with human error and avarice becoming the main reasons behind recent security breaches. It is no longer the fault of nasty foreign hackers. Hanaro, Cheong Wa Dae and GS Caltex were insider jobs. The enemy, it seems, now lies within.
According to Mok, there is no culture of data security in Korea. She says, "While our systems are much more stable than those in Europe, individuals at Korean companies are not taking as much care with personal data as Europeans are. That is one factor that allows Korean breaches to keep on making headlines.''