210,000 PCs in Nationwide PC Bangs Hacked... Gang Manipulating Portal Search Terms Arrested and Indicted

[Asia Economy Reporter Lee Jung-yoon] A group that hacked 210,000 computers in PC bangs nationwide to manipulate portal site search terms and earned 400 million won in one year has been arrested and indicted.

The Cyber Investigation Division of the Seoul Eastern District Prosecutors' Office (Chief Prosecutor Kim Bong-hyun) announced on the 13th that they have arrested and indicted Mr. A (38), CEO of a PC bang program development company, and Mr. B (38), CEO of a viral marketing company, on charges of violating the Information and Communications Network Act. Two others, a program developer and a sales manager, who face the same charges, were indicted without detention.

According to the prosecution, Mr. A and others are accused of hacking 210,000 PCs in 3,000 PC bangs nationwide from December 2018 to November last year to manipulate portal site search terms. Mr. A and his group, who supplied game management programs to PC bangs, secretly embedded malicious functions in the programs and distributed them, creating so-called 'zombie PCs' totaling 210,000 units.

The group succeeded in manipulating search terms 160 million times on portal sites using the zombie PCs, registering 94,000 keywords as related search terms and 45,000 as autocomplete search terms.

Prosecutors' investigation revealed that Mr. A and others earned 400 million won over one year by directly manipulating search terms or enabling the use of their programs upon request for search term manipulation.

They are also accused of stealing portal site accounts of PC bang users 560,000 times. This was done by extracting entered IDs and passwords when users logged into portal sites using Internet Explorer and transmitting them externally. Mr. A's group sold the stolen accounts for 10,000 won each or used them in manipulating portal site services.

To avoid detection of the malicious programs, they designed the malicious functions to activate only when antivirus programs and others were not running. After the malicious functions operated, all related files were deleted to erase traces.

A prosecution official stated, "Manipulating search terms distorts search results, undermining trust in portal companies' search results, and requires huge costs to prevent abuse. Consumers may make wrong choices based on distorted information. It also hinders fair competition, making it a serious crime. We will continue to crack down and conduct strict investigations not only on related search term manipulation but also on crimes involving personal information theft and illegal use."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.