N. Korean hacking group stole massive amount of personal info from S. Korean court computer network

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A North Korean hacking group stole a massive amount of personal information from a South Korean court computer network over about two years, the results of an investigation showed Saturday.

A total of 1,014 gigabytes (GB) worth of data and documents were leaked from the court computer network between January 2021 and February 2023 by the hacking group, presumed to be Lazarus, according to the joint probe by the police, the prosecution and the National Intelligence Service.

A huge chunk of the data leaked includes detailed personal information, such as names, resident registration numbers, financial records and others, according to the probe results.

The three agencies concluded that the hacking was conducted by North Korea given the types of malicious codes used for the hacking, settlements for leased servers with crypto assets and IP addresses.

The joint investigation team has identified only 5,171 files (4.7 GB), or 0.5 percent of the total leaked files, exposing loopholes in the judiciary security management and response system.

To prevent further damage, the team provided the leaked files to the court administration and notified the victims of the leakage.

The police investigation began in last December as the court carried out its own internal probe into the huge data leak in the first 10 months after the computer network detected and blocked malicious code. (Yonhap)