One of South Korea's largest telecommunications providers reportedly attacked hundreds of thousands of its own customers with malware in an attempt to stop them from using torrent sites.
Local media outlets claim that Korea Telecom (KT) used illegal methods to try to curb the use of peer-to-peer (P2P) downloading software.
KT apparently created an entire division dedicated to developing, maintaining and distributing the malware. The entire operation began in May 2020 and at one point affected approximately 600,000 people.
police involved
The victims were users of the Grid program, who suddenly began to create strange folders or directly hide downloaded files, and in some cases the infected computers simply stopped working.
A representative of the Grid Program told the media that only people using KT's Internet lines were affected. TechNadu saying.
Since the malware apparently came from KT's data center, the Bundang IDC center, the police soon intervened. Apparently, the Gyeonggi South District Office suspects that KT violated the Communications Secrets Protection Act (CSPA) and the Information and Communications Networks Act (ICNA). Meanwhile, KT's CEO also resigned.
In total, 13 people were identified and referred for prosecution, it was said. A new investigation was also launched last month.
P2P sites can often overload networks, just as legitimate streaming services can. At one point, South Korean telecommunications providers even fought a legal battle with Netflix over who should pay the costs of operating and building the network.
That said, it wouldn't be in the realm of science fiction if KT opted for a different method to try to prevent widespread use of P2P. Obviously, something like that would warrant at least a lawsuit, and since people's confidential files could also be involved, it could end up hurting KT a lot.
Through Register
