"SKT's integrity rating recovers 90% after hacking incident...customer trust improves"

[Financial News] SK Telecom's customer protection and trust-restoration measures introduced after last year's large-scale cyber incident have received positive reviews. Since the incident, the company's integrity rating has recovered 90% of the drop recorded immediately after the breach, while its customer-oriented attitude and corporate trust have also improved. The analysis suggests that swift responses, including free SIM replacement and cancellation-fee waivers, helped restore customer evaluations.
According to industry sources on the 12th, Professor Kim Seung-beom of Hongik University's Department of Business Administration presented these findings the previous day at a seminar titled “2026 CS WISE Insight,” hosted by Korea Management Association Consulting (KMAC) at FKI Tower in Yeouido, Seoul. His presentation was titled “A Study on Restoring Customer Trust: A Focus on the SK Telecom Case.”
The study analyzed survey responses and changes in the number of lines, among other data, from a total of 600 people: 400 customers who continued using SK Telecom after the cyber incident in April last year and 200 customers who left.
The survey found that SK Telecom's rating for the company's integrity recovered 90% of the drop recorded immediately after the incident. The recovery rates were 81% for its customer-oriented attitude, 80% for its reputation among others, and 73% for the company's capabilities. Trust in the company itself also recovered 64% of its decline.
These figures show how much of the drop in ratings immediately after the incident has been recovered compared with pre-incident levels. The analysis suggests that consumers first recognized SK Telecom's response efforts, while trust in the company itself has been slower to recover.
All 11 crisis-response measures implemented by SK Telecom received positive evaluations from a majority of respondents. The highest-rated measure was free SIM replacement and resetting: 76% of those who stayed with SK Telecom said it was a good response. Waivers and refunds of cancellation fees followed at 72%, and expansion of the SIM protection service at 71%.
Daily briefings received a 68% positive response rate, a 50% discount on telecommunications bills 67%, restructuring of the information security organization 65%, and plans for information security investment 64%. Free SIM replacement also ranked first as the measure that helped restore trust the most, at 30%.
After the incident, SK Telecom introduced consumer protection measures such as free SIM replacement, expanded automatic enrollment in its SIM protection service, and cancellation-fee waivers. For about two months, it held daily briefings to share updates on its response to the incident, and also pursued a reorganization of its information security unit and increased security investment.
The company has continued communicating with customers this year. It operates a Customer Trust Committee made up of five outside experts and a Customer Advisory Panel with 100 consumer participants. It also incorporates customer feedback into improvement plans through monthly Customer Trust Enhancement Meetings attended by senior executives.
Across 87 cities and counties nationwide, the company held 730 “visiting service” events and communicated directly with about 35,000 people. It also carried out tailored activities, including financial fraud prevention education for older adults and visits to customers who had used its services for at least 40 years.
However, as the corporate trust recovery rate was lower than the integrity rating, security improvements and follow-up management remain challenges. The top priorities for improvement in the event of a similar incident in the future were compensation commensurate with the damage (37%), prompt protective measures (32%), and investment in information security and stronger security (28%).
Professor Kim said, “This shows that evaluations of SKT's customer protection and responsible response efforts after the incident recovered first, while trust that the company can be trusted again and entrusted with customers' services is recovering relatively slowly. To regain consumers' trust after a crisis, sustained action and efforts to improve must support a sincere response as the starting point.”
[email protected] Yoon Hong-jip Reporter