SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
from the ensuring-fairness-and-safety dept.
Papas Fritas writes:
"Michael Kitchen at Marketwatch reports that when companies in the US are hacked for customer information they often seem to react to such thefts with little more than a sigh and a shrug if they even report it at all. But in South Korea, they don't mess around with ID theft.
South Korea's financial-services regulator announced Sunday that three firms which suffered the theft of consumers' data last year would be barred from issuing any new credit cards or extending any loans for three months. In addition, the executives at the companies involved showed their contrition by going before television cameras and making deep bows and personal apologies. Some executives reportedly resigned over the incident, even though the alleged ID thieves were caught and arrested. The South Korean Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) said the companies had 'neglected their legal duties of preventing any leakage of customer information.'"
(Score: 5, Informative) by girlwhowaspluggedout on Tuesday February 18 2014, @11:34AM
Although the summary, as well as the linked-to BBC article, call this a hacking incident, it was actually a simple case of data-theft-by-employee [bbc.co.uk]. Reminiscent of Snowden, the data -- names, credit card numbers, phone numbers, e-mail addresses, residential addresses, and resident-registration numbers [wsj.com] -- was stolen by a contractor who simply copied everything to a USB stick.
The contractor was working on forgery-proofing credit cards [dailymail.co.uk] for Korea Credit Bureau, a credit rating company that enjoys access to the databases of the the credit card companies in question. It just so happens that not only was the data unencrypted, the credit card firms did not know it had been copied until investigators told them about the theft [bbc.co.uk].
Keep in mind that this isn't just a run-of-the-mill credit card information leak, but a wide reaching theft that affected about 40% of all Koreans, including -- reportedly [dailymail.co.uk] -- South Korean President Park Geun-hye and UN chief Ban Ki-moon. I assume that American banking executives would receive more than a simple slap on the wrist if Obama's banking details were to be stolen. Piss off the wrong people, and...
Soylent is the best disinfectant.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by BsAtHome on Tuesday February 18 2014, @12:05PM
You actually highlight the real problem here: "Piss off the wrong people, and...".
That statement highlights the double standards employed. It should not matter *who* you piss off. Each instance must be handled in the same way. When not, social unrest is pre-programmed.
(Score: 1) by girlwhowaspluggedout on Tuesday February 18 2014, @12:36PM
TBH, I have no familiarity of South Korean culture or its criminal justice system, so there is always the chance that they do not employ such double standards. OTOH, South Korea's culture of strict hierarchical deference, so to speak, which is well known due to its disastrous effects [ap.org] on airline safety [wikipedia.org], leads me to suspect they're just as bad as the rest of us.
Soylent is the best disinfectant.
(Score: 1) by cyrano on Tuesday February 18 2014, @06:33PM
Actually, security for banking is very, very, very bad, because every bank is legally forced to use SEED. Wiki link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SEED [wikipedia.org]
This used to be an ActiveX component so the largest part of the Korean population is still on Windows XP and IE6. Even if the banks could serve a session to Firefox, not many people are using it.
They are being hit very hard by the chicken and egg problem.
In China, Windows XP is still gaining market share...
The quieter you become, the more you are able to hear. - Kali [kali.org]