South Korean mobile network hacked

A South Korean network provider was forced to apologise after personal data of millions of mobile phone subscribers were hacked.

Police have arrested two hackers who stole information from 8.7 million customers including customer names and phone numbers during a five month period, culminating in the selling of the details to telemarketing firms.

KT Corp, the country’s second largest wireless service provider apologised for the hacking, in which the culprits reportedly earned US$880,000 by selling the stolen data.

"The number of affected people account for nearly a half of about 17 million customers of ours,” a KT spokesman said.

"We deeply bow our head in apology for having your precious personal information leaked. We’ll try our best to make such things never happen again."