SEOUL, KOREA – On Friday, a Seoul court ruled that SK Communications, the operator of social networking site Cyworld, should pay KRW 200,000 in damages to each ID theft victim in a class action lawsuit against SK Communications filed by 2,737 ID theft victims.
This was the first victory for Nate and Cyworld ID theft victims who sued SK Communications for the 2011 ID hacking in which 35 million Nate and Cyworld users’ personally identifiable information was stolen.
The court said, “SK Communications completely failed to notice the phased theft of personally identifiable information provided by 35 million Nate and Cyworld users. Besides, SK Communications’ use of a general-purpose, easy-to-hack version of ALzip (from ESTsoft) made Cyworld more susceptible to hacking attempts. On top of that, the operator’s employee left the computer on without logging out, therefore leaving Cyworld’s security porous until the early hours of the morning.”
Meanwhile, complaints filed against ESTsoft, Symantec Korea and AhnLap, which provided SK Communications with privacy protection services, were dismissed.
Sean Chung (hbpark@etnews.com)
**Article provided by etnews [Korea IT News]
[Reference] : http://english.etnews.com/electronics/2715655_1303.html