South Korea imposes record fine on telecom company for user data breach

ISTANBUL

South Korea imposed a record fine Thursday on a telecom company for a data breach, according to the Korea JoongAng Daily newspaper.

The Personal Information Protection Commission (PIPC) fined SK Telecom 134.79 billion won ($97 million) for an April hacking incident that compromised the personal data of users, it said.

The regulator said 25 categories of user information were hacked, including mobile phone numbers, subscriber identification numbers, and USIM authentication keys, which affected 23,244,649 LTE and 5G subscribers.

SK Telecom also failed to notify affected customers within 72 hours, as required by law, resulting in an additional fine of 9.6 million won.

PIPC’s largest fine overall before Thursday was 69.2 billion won against Google in 2022, while for telecom operators, the highest was 6.8 billion won against LG U+ in 2023.

PIPC Chairman Ko Hak-soo said the penalty was reduced due to SK Telecom not gaining “direct economic benefits.” He said the company “could have prevented the breach with stronger investment, which made the violation more serious.”

SK Telecom expressed regret that the company's “explanations and remedial efforts were not reflected in the outcome of the investigation and deliberation.”

“We will carefully review the written decision once received and determine our position accordingly,” it said.

“We take this result very seriously and will continue to prioritize personal data protection in all areas of management while doing our utmost to safeguard customer information,” added the company.