680,000 students?personal info leaked

Police have apprehended eight people in two separate cases where they stole high school seniors’ personal information and sold it to vocational schools, who used the information to attract students.

The information of 680,000 high school students was sold for 60 to 80 won each.

The Cyber Terror Response Center at the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency said Sunday that they arrested a 47-year-old man, surnamed Ko, on suspicions of stealing personal information of 110,000 high school seniors and selling it.

In September 2011, Ko allegedly had a China-based South Korean hacker, identified as Jeong, obtain the names, phone numbers, home and email addresses of the students who were to graduate next February, from two websites offering information on college admission. He then allegedly sold the information to four vocational schools, in return for 11 million won.

Vocational schools, which teach special skills such as baking or computer programming, are for many high school graduates who don’t enter colleges.

“Koh worked at a vocational school previously. Noticing that such schools compete with each other to invite new students, he asked Jeong to hack the websites and sold the information to the schools, who then advertised themselves by calling or emailing the students with the information,” a police officer said.

“Regarding the leak, the websites claimed the information may not be from themselves but from other sites because students usually join multiple sites. But we concluded so based on testimony from Ko,” he added.

In a separate case, seven people were booked without physical detention for similar deals.

The 51-year-old Lee allegedly stole information of some 570,000 other high school students, who subscribed to workbooks from a publishing firm between 2009 and 2011. He obtained the information after offering 15 million won to an employee of the firm, for which Lee himself had also worked, according to police.

Lee allegedly sold this to a middleman, Yang, at 23 million won. Yang then sold this information to two vocational schools at 28 million won and 40 million won each, and the second school paying 40 million won was the same one that traded with Ko.

Yang, who operates a photo studio in Seoul, had a previous record: While making middle and high schools’ yearbooks since 1992, he obtained students’ information from those schools and sold it to the vocational schools and other admission-related agencies.

“We are looking for Jeong who is in China. We expect more of such deals to occur after the college scholastic ability test on Thursday, so we’ll strengthen our investigation into such cases,” the officer said.