KT CEO Youngseop Kim Admits Poor Femtocell Management... "Resolving the Situation Is the Top Priority"

"Femtocells Installed and Managed by External Contractors...
Measures Taken to Prevent Network Access"
On Calls for Resignation: "Not Appropriate to Comment Now... Resolving the Situation Is the Top Priority"

KT has admitted to inadequate management of femtocells-ultra-small base stations suspected to have been used in unauthorized micro-payment incidents. KT stated that it is assessing damages across all micro-payment authentication methods, including SMS.

On the morning of September 24, Youngseop Kim, CEO of KT, appeared as a witness at a National Assembly hearing on the KT and Lotte Card hacking incidents, hosted by the Science, Technology, Information and Broadcasting and Communications Committee. He said, "After the micro-payment incident, we found many loopholes and poor management in our handling of femtocells," adding, "After the incident, we took measures to prevent illegal femtocells from connecting to the network."

Youngseop Kim, CEO of KT, is responding to lawmakers' questions at a hearing on large-scale hacking incidents in telecommunications and finance held by the National Assembly's Science, Technology, Information and Broadcasting and Communications Committee on the 24th. On the left is Jwajin Cho, CEO of Lotte Card. September 24, 2025 Photo by Hyunmin Kim

Kim acknowledged the criticism that outsourcing femtocell installation and management to external contractors contributed to the poor oversight. In response to Assemblyman Lee Sanghui of the People Power Party, who pointed out that inadequate femtocell management was the cause of the incident, Kim bowed his head and said, "I acknowledge that."

He also stated his intention to determine the extent of damages suffered by customers who were affected by payment fraud through authentication methods other than ARS, such as SMS. When Assemblywoman Hwang Jeonga of the Democratic Party of Korea criticized KT for passively investigating the scale of damages based solely on ARS authentication, Kim replied, "It takes time to analyze, so we initially analyzed based on ARS, but we are now analyzing data for all authentication methods, including SMS," indicating plans to expand the investigation into the scale of damages.

Kim avoided giving a direct answer to calls for his resignation over responsibility for the incident. When Assemblywoman Hwang suggested he should step down, Kim responded, "It is not appropriate to comment on that at this time," adding, "Our top priority should be resolving this situation."

Regarding suspicions of a cover-up in the early stages of the incident, such as the timing of server disposal and reporting, Kim explained, "There were issues during the fact-finding process," but clarified, "While there were inappropriate or insufficient actions in some processes, there was no intention of an organized cover-up."

Ryu Jemyoung, Second Vice Minister of Science and ICT, responded to Assemblyman Park Junghoon of the People Power Party, who asked whether there was still a risk despite KT's claim that key personal information used to generate cloned phones, such as authentication keys, had not been leaked in the hack. Ryu stated, "We will thoroughly examine even those aspects."

Vice Minister Ryu added, "KT reported that the authentication keys were not leaked, but as the joint public-private investigation team proceeds, we will not simply rely on KT's statements and will conduct a thorough investigation."

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