Police filed an arrest warrant for a person known by his last name, Kim (26), who works for an Internet travel agency, for hacking employee Internet Messenger conversations and occasionally reporting them to the company head.
Kim is charged with obtaining the Messenger conversations of five employees about 60 times from last December till recently through a hacking program, and reporting it to the company head.
Police said, "Kim downloaded a hacking program called RADMIN through a portal site and installed it in the employees’ computers around last December and occasionally reported the conversation contents to the company’s executives with the intention of getting the staff, about whom he usually did not have good feelings, fired."
A person known by the last name Park (32), whose Messenger conversation was hacked by Kim, said, "For some time, I had the feeling that the executives and company head knew all about the private discussions colleagues had through Messenger. I began to suspect [something was up]." He then said, "By chance, I saw my Messenger screen open on Kim’s computer and was surprised, so I reported it.”
As the practice of Internet users giving and receiving short messages by way of Messenger programs becomes wide-spread, cases of hacking into the program to spy on conversations are happening frequently.
According to the Information Protection Law, those that violate other people’s personal information or communication secrets through phone, Internet, or other information communication networks will be sentenced to imprisonment for up to 5 years or a fine of up to W 50 million.
(Shin Ji-eun, ifyouare@chosun.com)
