Hacking victims lose lawsuit in massive info leak

The lawsuits of thousands of people whose personal information was hacked from a popular social networking service (SNS) last year were dismissed yesterday.

Cyworld, once the country’s most prominent SNS, and the Nate search engine came under a massive hacking attack in July of last year, leading to the leak of private information of some 35 million people, including their names, birth dates, mobile phone numbers and encrypted social security numbers.

A police investigation determined the hacker was likely based in China, although the culprit has not been identified.

The Seoul Central District Court dismissed five separate class action suits filed by a total of 2,847 users against SK Communications Co. which operates the two Web sites; ESTsoft Corp. which manages the software used by the hacker; and the state.
“It is difficult to judge that the incident happened due to SK Communications not fulfilling its duty to protect personal information from leaking,” the court said in its ruling.

“The court also does not accept the plaintiffs’ argument that ESTsoft violated its duty to prevent hacking and the state did not fulfill its surveillance obligations.”

Yonhap