TVING CEO Julie Choi Apologizes for Personal Information Leak, Says Company Will Take Full Responsibility for Relief

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[Financial News] Julie Choi, CEO of TVING, apologized for the personal information leak incident.
\r\nOn the 3rd, Choi issued a statement and said, "I sincerely apologize for causing great concern to our users over this personal information leak incident." She added, "TVING has confirmed that users' personal information was leaked through unauthorized external access."
\r\nShe said, "We failed to protect the information that users trusted us with, and the responsibility lies entirely with TVING." She added, "After confirming the incident, TVING took the necessary response measures and is currently cooperating fully with the government's investigation and that of relevant agencies. We will transparently share updates on the progress and follow-up measures."
\r\nChoi emphasized, "We are individually notifying affected users, and we will take full responsibility until the end to provide relief and protect users."
\r\nShe said, "TVING takes this incident very seriously. We will review our security system from the ground up to ensure this never happens again." She added, "We will do everything we can to restore users' trust and take full responsibility until the end. Once again, I deeply apologize."
\r\nEarlier, TVING confirmed on the 2nd that unauthorized access had occurred in a database storing users' personal information, resulting in a leak. The company notified users of the incident through notices on its website and app early that morning.
\r\nThe items confirmed to have been leaked so far include ID, name, date of birth, gender, CI, duplicate subscription verification information (DI), mobile phone number (last four digits encrypted), email (ID portion encrypted, excluding the domain), refund account number (encrypted), password (one-way encrypted), and other service-use related information. TVING explained that resident registration numbers and valid payment-related information it does not possess were not included in the leak.
\r\nThe government has formed a Public-Private Joint Investigation Team and launched a full-scale probe to examine the damage caused by the leak of TVING member information and determine the cause of the incident.
The Ministry of Science and ICT and the Korea Internet & Security Agency (KISA) have asked TVING to preserve relevant materials and are investigating the cause of the incident and the scale of the damage.
The Ministry of Science and ICT said that after an emergency meeting of its incident review committee, members agreed that the case qualifies as a serious incident and requires the formation of a Public-Private Joint Investigation Team.
Based on the committee's review, the ministry decided to form the Public-Private Joint Investigation Team after considering the possibility of large-scale information leaks and additional damage.
A ministry official said, "The Public-Private Joint Investigation Team includes not only officials from the Ministry of Science and ICT and KISA, but also private-sector experts in forensics and cloud services." The official added, "We plan to conduct a thorough investigation and disclose the results to the public transparently."
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mkchang@fnnews.com Jang Min-kwon Reporter