Posted on : Nov.1,2006 14:13 KST
Lax security on employment Web sites at LG, Posco leads to leak
A graduate student majoring in computer engineering at a university in Seoul obtained easy access to the personal information of employment applicants at the Web sites of several of Korea’s large conglomerates, police said. In the latest incident, the student, identified as Im, 26, applied for a job at LG Electronics in late September, but he failed at the initial screening level. Having looked for a job for three years but to no avail, Im was angry. He went back to the site, and discovered to his surprise that he could easily access the information of fellow applicants.
When he logged in using his employment applicant ID, he only had to slightly alter the Web address in the internet browser window and he was presented with the information of nearly 3,600 LG Electronics applicants.
Im found out the same simple trick worked at the online employment sites of other conglomerates. He obtained information about applicants at the sites of Dongbu Group and POSCO. At Dongbu’s site, he was even able to collect applicants’ national registration numbers.
The Cyber Terror Response Center of the National Police said on October 31 that it arrested Im for illegally obtaining the personal information of about 14,000 job-seekers and posting information of about 3,600 of those people on the Internet. In the process of the police investigation, it was found that the companies involved did not remove applicants’ information from their online employment sites and did not take proper measures to protect it, even after the employment application process was completed.
An official of the center said, "Im’s deed is illegal, but the security of employment sites of those large companies was so loose that Im didn’t consider it an illegal activity," adding, "The practice of companies continuously retaining applicants’ personal information after the employment application process aggravated the situation."
Meanwhile, some LG applicants, whose information was leaked, plan to file a lawsuit against the company.
