[2021 National Audit] 8 out of 10 Messenger Harassment Cases Involve 'KakaoTalk'

Banking Sector Pushes for Unified Messaging via KakaoTalk
Assemblyman Kang Min-guk: "Despite Many KakaoTalk Issues, It Receives Special Privileges"

[Asia Economy Reporter Ji Yeon-jin] It has been revealed that 8 out of 10 cases of messenger phishing damage occurred through KakaoTalk. Financial authorities have faced criticism for reportedly promoting the unification of bank messages onto KakaoTalk.

According to the 'Messenger Phishing Damage Status' data received from the Financial Supervisory Service by the office of National Assembly member Kang Min-guk (Jinju-eul, Gyeongnam) of the Political Affairs Committee, the number of messenger phishing damage cases from 2018 to last year reached 26,834. The total damage amount was 93.1 billion KRW.

Among these, the number of messenger phishing cases that occurred through KakaoTalk was 21,768, accounting for 81.1% of the total damage cases. The damage amount also reached 71.9 billion KRW, which is 77.2% of the total damage amount.

The number of messenger phishing cases increased from 9,607 cases (21.6 billion KRW) in 2018 to 8,306 cases (34.2 billion KRW) in 2019, and 8,921 cases (37.3 billion KRW) last year. In particular, the messenger phishing damage cases alone from January to June this year reached 11,278, with damage amounting to 46.6 billion KRW, already surpassing last year's damage scale.

The problem is that while financial authorities are promoting the 'Measures to Prevent Illegal Text Messages Impersonating Financial Companies,' they are also pushing for a plan to temporarily unify bank advertisement messages onto Kakao AlimTalk.

On July 9, the Financial Services Commission, together with the Financial Supervisory Service, Ministry of Science and ICT, Korea Communications Commission, Korea Federation of Banks, KB Kookmin Bank, Industrial Bank of Korea, and three mobile carriers, held the '3rd Working Meeting on Measures to Prevent Illegal Text Messages Impersonating Financial Companies,' where they discussed temporarily unifying bank advertisement messages onto Kakao AlimTalk as one of the measures to prevent illegal text messages.

However, text messages subject to government regulation are managed and supervised by the Korea Communications Commission and KISA under the Telecommunications Business Act to prevent number spoofing and block spam messages, but Kakao AlimTalk operates autonomously and is not subject to regulation. Additionally, since many people aged 40 and above, who are the main targets of financial fraud, do not use KakaoTalk, it is pointed out that it is difficult to prevent messenger phishing damage.

Assemblyman Kang said, "Given that most messenger phishing damage cases occur through KakaoTalk, if the government promotes trust in Kakao AlimTalk by unifying all bank message notifications onto it, the likelihood of phishing scams increasing as a target of spam fraud organizations will become even higher," and emphasized, "Reconsider the plan to unify bank messages onto Kakao AlimTalk, which is a measure against illegal text messages impersonating financial companies for a specific company, and prepare practical countermeasures to reduce messenger phishing damage."

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