South Korean telecom companies deliberately infected thousands of users with malware
One of South Korea’s largest telecommunications providers is said to have attacked hundreds of thousands of its own customers with malware in an attempt to stop them from using torrent sites.
Local media claim that Korea Telecom (KT) has used illegal methods to restrict the use of peer-to-peer (P2P) download software.
Apparently KT has set up an entire division dedicated to developing, maintaining and distributing the malware. The entire operation started in May 2020 and affected around 600,000 people at one point.
Police involved
The victims were the users of the Grid program, which suddenly started creating strange folders or outright hiding downloaded files. In some cases, the infected PCs even stopped working altogether.
A representative of the Grid program told the media that only people using KT’s internet lines were affected. TechNadu said.
Since the malware appeared to come from KT’s data center, the Bundang IDC center, the police were quickly called in. Apparently, the Gyeonggi Southern District Office suspects that KT has violated the Communications Secrets Protection Act (CSPA) and the Information and Communications Network Act (ICNA). In the meantime, KT’s CEO has also resigned.
A total of thirteen individuals were identified and referred for prosecution. A new investigation also started last month.
P2P sites can often put a strain on networks, just as legitimate streaming services do. At one point, South Korean telecommunications providers even engaged in a legal battle with Netflix over who should pay for network operations and construction costs.
That said, it wouldn’t be in the realm of science fiction if KT opted for some other method to prevent widespread P2P use. Obviously something like that would at least warrant a lawsuit, and considering that people’s sensitive files could also be involved, this could end up hurting KT a lot.
Through The register