[Edaily Reporter Kim Hyun-ah ] Claims have been raised that the fallout from the TVING personal information leak has spread beyond direct subscribers to users who signed up through partner services such as KTCorporation, Naver, and Kakao. However, KTCorporation refuted this, stating, “This incident was caused by a hack of the TVING operator’s DB and is unrelated to KTCorporation’s systems.”

According to data submitted to Lee Jeong-heon, a member of the Democratic Party of Korea on the National Assembly’s Science, ICT, Broadcasting, and Communications Committee, by the Ministry of Science and ICT and the Personal Information Protection Commission on the 14th, the TVING data breach appears to have affected customers who subscribed to or used the service through partner companies.

KTCorporation(030200)In KTCorporation’s case, users who received TVING subscription vouchers earlier this year as compensation for a previous personal information leak were also among those affected. Approximately 586,000 customers selected TVING vouchers through KTCorporation’s customer appreciation program, and it was determined that about 416,000 of them—who actually registered their vouchers and used the service—were affected by the leak.

Furthermore, the investigation revealed that identity verification information—such as names, email addresses, and mobile phone numbers—as well as social media account information for users who signed up via Naver (NAVER(035420)) and Kakao(035720)’s easy login features were stored on TVING and were leaked in this incident.

Rep. Lee stated, “Even if a company is not directly responsible for the personal information leak, it cannot be exempt from the responsibility to notify and protect affected customers simply because it provided a partnered service.” He added, “As this case demonstrates that partnerships between major platforms and the integration of simplified login features can create security vulnerabilities, the government must take steps to improve the regulatory framework, including holding partner companies accountable.”

In response, KTCorporation stated, “This data breach occurred due to an external intrusion into the internal database of TVING, operated by CJ ENM CO., Ltd.(035760), and is unrelated to the systems managed by KTCorporation.”

KTCorporation explained, “We do not have the authority to operate or access TVING’s personal information processing system, nor have we provided or entrusted customer personal information to TVING during the process of providing the subscription vouchers,” adding, “What was provided to customers were random voucher codes, not personal information.”

The company added, “Given the nature of partnership services, there were limitations to our ability to anticipate or control security incidents at our partner,” and pledged, “We will continue to strengthen security management and verification for our partnership services in the future.”