KT to Conduct Comprehensive Investigation of This Year’s SMS and PASS Small Payment Authentications

KT has decided to conduct a comprehensive investigation into all authentication methods used this year in connection with the unauthorized small payment incident.

Youngseop Kim, CEO of KT, is responding to questions from committee members at the hearing on the large-scale hacking incident in telecommunications and finance held on the 24th at the National Assembly's Science, Technology, Information and Broadcasting and Communications Committee. Photo by Yonhap News

On the 24th, at a National Assembly hearing on the hacking incidents held by the Science, Technology, Information and Broadcasting and Communications Committee, KT CEO Youngseop Kim stated, "Authentication methods such as SMS and PASS take time to review," adding, "We will prioritize and begin by inspecting SMS authentication first."

He further explained, "The previous investigation period started from June 1, but now we intend to start the comprehensive investigation from January 1 of this year." Previously, KT had investigated 22.67 million automated response system (ARS) calls for small payments made between June 1 and September 10 to assess the extent of the damage.

Regarding potential measures such as suspending new subscriptions at the company level, similar to what SK Telecom did after its hacking incident, CEO Kim said, "We are taking various appropriate actions for customers who suffered damages, and for all other customers who were not affected, we will review the investigation results and the details of any damages before making a decision."

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