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North Korea Is Blackmailing Top South Korean Online Retailer For $2.66 Million (softpedia.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the do-it-or-else dept.

An anonymous reader writes from a report via Softpedia: South Korea says that North Korea is behind a data breach that occurred last May, where hackers stole details about 10 million user accounts from Interpark.com, one of the country's biggest shopping portals. The hackers later tried to extort Interpark management by requesting for 3 billion won ($2.66 million / 2.39 million euros), otherwise they were going to release the data on the internet. [The hackers wanted the money transferred to their accounts as Bitcoin.] Authorities say they tracked the source of the hack to an IP in North Korea, previously used in other attacks on South Korean infrastructure. "Besides the evidence related to the IP addresses and the techniques used in the attacks, investigators also said that the emails Interpark management received, written in the Korean language, contained words and vocabulary expressions that are only used in the North," reports Softpedia.

20 of 45 comments (clear)

  1. Serves them right by Dunbal · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I'm sorry but when you don't take your customers' security seriously, don't complain when someone walks through the front door and steals the stuff you left lying around. The hackers are wrong, but it's the store's own damned fault. They'd rather make more profit than pay for serious security. Shows what they think of their clients.

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    Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
    1. Re: Serves them right by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      Just kidding! I'm going to ram this tire iron up my ass now!

    2. Re:Serves them right by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      The store isn't the victim, it's a(n incompetent/negligent) middle man. The customers of the store are the victims. GP is not blaming them, idiot.

    3. Re:Serves them right by Dunbal · · Score: 2

      The VICTIMS are the customers who are about to have their private information plastered all over the internet. The store is not a victim. It's pretty obvious they don't give a shit.

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      Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
    4. Re:Serves them right by Dunbal · · Score: 1

      Nothing is unhackable.

      In theory. In practice humans go for the low hanging fruit. This store was probably hacked because of ridiculous password security or SQL injection, or some other trivial technique. You don't need to build government-level security to convince a bad guy to move on to an easier target.

      Also the store is not the victim. The customers who trusted the store are.

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      Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
    5. Re:Serves them right by Salgak1 · · Score: 2

      . . .or, the most common source of breaches of them all: either an insider or a social engineering effort. Or at least as part of the effort. . .

    6. Re: Serves them right by Dunbal · · Score: 2

      You don't think breaches of this kind would negatively affect the company?

      Besides the point entirely. I was accused of victim blaming. Say you are a construction worker and you lend me your tools to look after until tomorrow. I don't give a damn and leave your tools lying around where anyone can steal them. Next day, the tools are gone and when you ask me for them I just shrug my shoulders. Who is the victim - me or you? Yeah ok, I have lost credibility. You will never lend me any tools again. But I wouldn't call me a VICTIM. If anything, I am an accomplice.

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      Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
  2. Re:so that's how much.. by Dunbal · · Score: 4, Funny

    We're going to launch a missile, and S. Korea is going to pay for it!

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    Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
  3. ...and Kim is to blame by hexonut · · Score: 1

    It's funny how every time something happens when the culprit seems to originate from a country that the US doesn't like, it's always suggested that the government of that country is to blame. Case in point: the title reads "North Korea Is Blackmailing...", not "North Korean hackers are...". Same thing when something happens out of Russia: for sure Putin orchestrated it. If not Putin, who else could have? A cat?

    I'm imagining a situation: what if every time something happens that looks like originating out of the US, every media outlet and their dog would point fingers at Obama personally?

    Come on. North Korea is a 25 million country, it's not extraordinarily big, but, just think about it for a sec, there just might, just might be some people other than starving illiterate peasants and Party and military staff.

    1. Re:...and Kim is to blame by eht · · Score: 1

      There are many people other than starving illiterate peasants and Party and military staff. None of those people have internet access except with permission of the Party and military staff, with tight monitoring of what is going on.

    2. Re:...and Kim is to blame by walterbyrd · · Score: 1

      Funny how some people are always grasping for straws to find some reason to smear the US.

      Do you actually think some individual in NK, with no connection to the government, could do this? They don't even have open internet connections for individuals.

    3. Re:...and Kim is to blame by hexonut · · Score: 2

      I pretty much think they well could. I actually lived in a communist country for quite a long while and I personally, first-hand, know how things worked there. "Control by the government" is a grossly overstated illusion.

      The fact of the matter is, the guards, especially the ones working "in the field" and whose tasks are to control the actual people rather then organize the whole process, are usually recruited from these proverbial illiterate peasants, so the educated city dwellers could very easily find the loopholes in the written and unwritten laws and customs to do whatever the hell they please, especially if they are criminally minded. There's always a way to conceal what you do on the internet from a low-ranked guard tasked in controlling you, because you know your computer system in and out and he doesn't. In order to get you scrutinized by the higher-level (and educated) officials this guard would need something more than just a suspicion of your wrong-doing. Provoke his suspicion three times in a row without actually doing anything "prohibited", watch his angry superiors investigate the empty suspicion and shut him up for good; after that you're free to do whatever. That's just one way of doing things, there are many others.

      It only appears that totalitarian governments control the crime, the reality is rather far from that appearance.

      My initial post was intended as a sarcasm regarding the well-ingrained mindset among the Westerners (not only Americans) that regards the people in the communist and ex-communist countries as some kind of untermenschen, a mere drones at the command of their Supreme Leaders. The replies I received here so far only underscores the assessment that this mindset is pretty much alive and unshaken.

    4. Re:...and Kim is to blame by Megol · · Score: 1

      An AC calling someone an idiot. What are the odds?

  4. Re:This should have been caught right away by behrooz0az · · Score: 1

    Apparently it's hard to drop packets from a /22
    complete range is 175.45.176.0 to 175.45.179.255

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    Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion. -- Spazmania (174582)
  5. Re:Lying imperialist propaganda alert!!!!!! by Falconhell · · Score: 1

    Who knew glorious leader posted on Slashdot? Is this APKs real login?

  6. Re:it's getting less and less worthwhile by Aighearach · · Score: 1

    Yes. Go get to it.

  7. Drop their routing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Remind me again what exactly north korea has to offer to the rest of the entire world that we are not dropping the routing to all their ASNs and (if required) every upstream provider that gives them transit?

    I mean, China is one thing: they hack the world just like the USA, but they give a *lot* back, it is quite easy to get a lot of chinese contributions in science and engineering and general content. They deserve to be in the internet.

    But north korea?

  8. Re:Lying imperialist propaganda alert!!!!!! by Salgak1 · · Score: 1

    Well OF COURSE Lil' Kim is on Slashdot. Like his father before him, he so ronery. . . . ;)

  9. Re:Lying imperialist propaganda alert!!!!!! by lalleglad · · Score: 1

    How can he be so ronery with all the girls he has to choose from?
    He is so chou-beri-lucky :-)

  10. Re:it's getting less and less worthwhile by Megol · · Score: 1

    Hey some of those "savages" are actually decent people! Besides nuking them will lead to contamination of Europe! ... we are talking about the UK, right?