[E-Daily Reporter Yun Junghoon ] During the National Assembly’s Science, Technology, Information, Broadcasting, and Communications Committee (STIBCC) audit, lawmakers from both the ruling and opposition parties focused their questioning on allegations that LG Uplus(032640)covered up a hacking incident and on the issue of waiving user penalty fees. The Ministry of Science and ICT stated that it would actively review measures to protect users and the possibility of waiving penalty fees in cases where the ministry is at fault.

During the Science, Technology, Information, and Broadcasting Committee’s parliamentary audit held at the National Assembly on the 6th, Rep. Cho Kyung-tae of the People Power Party asked Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Science and ICT Bae Kyung-hoon, “If it is confirmed that the hacking was covered up, shouldn’t subscribers be exempted from penalty fees?”

In response, Deputy Prime Minister Bae said, “If cases of serious service disruptions or violations of core contractual obligations are uncovered, the government will take proactive steps to ensure that penalty fees are waived.”

During the afternoon session of questioning that followed, lawmakers continued to press for answers regarding LG Uplus’s liability and whether penalty fees would be waived.

Hun Gi Lee, a lawmaker from the Democratic Party of Korea, called Hong Kwan-hee, Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) of LG Uplus, as a witness. He pointed out, “The Ministry of Science and ICT and the Personal Information Protection Commission requested an investigation because it was difficult to determine the cause of the data breach due to factors such as server disposal, and the investigation has been ongoing for over 10 months.” He added, “If the investigation confirms intentional concealment or destruction of evidence, this would constitute clear fault on the part of the company, and therefore the penalty fees should be waived.”

Citing previous cases from last year—such as those involving SKTelecom(017670) —where penalty fees were waived due to the telecommunications companies’ negligence, Rep. Lee again demanded an answer, asking, “If negligence is acknowledged, will you waive the penalty fee?”

In response, Hong Gwan-hee, CISO, stated, “We will take every possible protective measure for areas where user protection is necessary,” adding, “We will do our utmost to identify areas where we can review and take action internally.”

This controversy arose after LG Uplus reinstalled the relevant servers—effectively reformatting them—during the hacking investigation.

Last July, after a white-hat hacker’s tip revealed evidence of a hack at LG Uplus, the Ministry of Science and ICT requested the submission of official inspection results on August 11. However, LG Uplus reinstalled the operating system (OS) on the server suspected of being hacked (APPM) the very next day, August 12, and then submitted a report on the 13th stating, “There are no traces of a breach.”

Problems also arose during the submission of digital forensic data. Since the main server (active) and the backup server (standby) were synchronized and contained identical data, the company first submitted an image of the main server. However, by the time it was asked to submit data from the backup server, the OS had already been reinstalled on that server as well. As a result, the original logs from the initial stage of the hacking incident were not submitted.

In response, Han Jun-ho, a lawmaker from the Democratic Party of Korea, said, “Isn’t it standard practice to preserve the original state of the server before reinstalling the OS upon receiving notification of a potential breach?” He added, “There was nearly a month between the notification on July 19 and August 12, so the fact that server OS work was suddenly performed on August 12 inevitably raises suspicion.”

He continued, “Furthermore, while they claim to have submitted the image and preserved the original, why did the government’s joint public-private investigation team officially announce that traces of the breach and the attack vector could not be verified due to the OS reinstallation?” He added, “LG Uplus’s response is the most baffling of all.”

Currently, the Ministry of Science and ICT and the Personal Information Protection Commission have requested an investigation, and the police are conducting an investigation into charges of obstruction of official duties through fraud. Deputy Prime Minister Bae reaffirmed the government’s policy that, if the investigation confirms intentional destruction of evidence or obstruction of the investigation, the government will strongly demand that subscribers be exempted from penalty fees.