Ground One, an affiliate of Kakao Blockchain technology, belatedly announced that more than 2,000 cases of personal information leakage occurred on the 8th of last month. Ground One is a local subsidiary of Kakao’s block chain, Ground X.
Ground One sent an e-mail to the customer on the 2nd to notify them of the personal information leak. According to the company on the 2nd, it infiltrated its cloud-based document management system with a public cloud account stolen by an unidentified outsider through hacking around 3 p.m. on the 8th of last month and stole files for work. This included personal information of 2,000 people, including names, e-mails and phone numbers.
“The names, mobile phone numbers, and e-mails of newsletters, including media lists, officials from partner companies, and offline event attendees, were leaked,” said an official at Ground One. “Customer information of Clayton, our own block chain platform, was not leaked.”
However, strong criticism has been raised over the announcement of the personal information leak that occurred on April 8. They say that the situation has been enough to cause damage to those whose personal information has been leaked. The company explained that it was delayed in the process of conducting internal security precautions to prevent further damage. After the accident, the company reportedly reported it to related agencies such as the Korea Internet & Security Agency (KISA) and took measures to prevent recurrence, including blocking access to leaked accounts, strengthening internal security and controlling IP.
Ground One said, “We have not yet confirmed any cases of abuse of leaked information,” but added, “Please pay special attention to voice phishing, spam text messages and illegal telemarketing suspected of abusing the information.” He also apologized, saying, “We will improve our internal information protection management system, including strengthening privacy measures, to prevent such incidents from happening in the future.”
Ground One was established in 2018 by Kakao to run the Ground X Blockchain business in Korea after Japan. Based on the block chain platform ‘Clayton’, it released its mobile version of ‘Clip’ in June. The clip was posted on Kakao Talk.