Police have launched an investigation into a large-scale data theft at Duo — one of South Korea's largest matchmaking firms — as authorities believe the personal information of 427,464 members was stolen.
The Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency said Friday that it is investigating the case filed by the company on Feb. 4. It is looking into how the data theft occurred and applicable criminal charges concerning violation of the Act on Promotion of Information and Communications Network Utilization and Information Protection.
The state-run Personal Information Protection Commission recently announced the massive data theft, which occurred when a Duo employee's computer was hacked in January. The commission imposed a penalty surcharge of 1.2 billion won ($809,880) along with a 13.2 million won administrative fine.
The leaked data includes not only users' names, dates of birth, genders, schools and workplaces, but also additional personal information such as resident registration numbers, contact information, addresses and family details.
minsikyoon@heraldcorp.com
