A customer talks on the phone behind the logo of KB Kookmin Financial Group at a branch of KB Kookmin Bank in Seoul on Jan. 21, 2014.
More than 100 million South Korean credit card and account details have been stolen and sold to marketing firms, with President Park Geun-hye and U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon reportedly among the victims.
According to Reuters, around 130 people have joined a class action suit against their credit card providers in what is expected to be the first in a storm of furious litigation. Local media claim most that most South Koreans who own a credit card have been affected. The country’s population stands at around 50 million.
An employee of Korea Credit Bureau, who was ironically responsible for new software development to detect credit card fraud, stole the data in 2012 using a USB device, claim prosecutors.
[Reuters]