"Suspected Use of Macros"... Police Tracking 'Organized Malicious Comments Against Lee Jae-myung'

Whistleblower "Belittling Governor Lee and Praising Representative Lee Nak-yeon"
Police Conduct Joint Investigation with Chinese Public Security Bureau

Photo by Yonhap News

[Asia Economy Reporter Na Ye-eun] The Gyeonggi Southern Provincial Police Agency announced on the 18th that they have received a complaint alleging that there is an organized group posting malicious comments targeting Lee Jae-myung, the Democratic Party presidential candidate and governor of Gyeonggi Province, and are currently investigating the matter.

Earlier, a supporter of Governor Lee submitted a complaint to the police last year in September, stating, "There are about 50 malicious comments on a domestic portal site that disparage Governor Lee and praise Assemblyman Lee Nak-yeon, suspected to have been posted using a macro program in an organized manner. If macros were used, it constitutes obstruction of business for the portal site, so please punish them for obstruction of business."

The police immediately launched an investigation but faced difficulties tracing the IDs that posted the problematic malicious comments. The most recent comment among them was posted in July of last year, and many comments had been deleted by the time the investigation began.

However, after continued tracking, the police identified the ID, and the investigation revealed that while the name entered in the personal information section during portal registration was a Korean name, the mobile phone number was one used in China.

Subsequently, the police traced the IP addresses associated with the ID, finding that eight locations were mostly domestic, but some could not be identified. Furthermore, investigations of residents at the confirmed domestic locations showed no connection to the malicious comments, leading the police to keep open the possibility of hacking and continue the investigation.

To trace the Chinese mobile phone number, the police are also conducting a joint investigation by requesting confirmation of the user of the number from the Chinese public security authorities.

A police official stated, "Whether macros were used and whether the malicious comments were posted in an organized manner can be confirmed after identifying the ID user, so we are currently focusing the investigation on tracking the ID user."

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