Gift Theft

 

A recent investigation disclosed the fact that mobile gift certificates or cards are not safe from cyber attack. Unlike an earlier assumption that the unauthorized use of Homeplus gift cards, which occurred early this year, was caused by a data error, a police investigation found out that it was instead an organized crime ring of Chinese hackers.

The Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency Cyber Crime Unit announced on Aug. 2 that it put three members of a hacker group, including 26-year-old Cho who is naturalized Chinese, on the wanted list on charges of the infringement of the information network law, which includes breaking the computer system of the Homeplus mobile gift certificate issuing agency and stealing information.

According to the police, the three hackers are suspected of getting into the Homplus gift card sending server of the issuing agency and stealing 890,000 gift certificate numbers and PINs from the end of Dec. last year to Jan. this year. Then, they sold them or exchanged them into paper vouchers and distributed them around the nation. The estimated amount that they extorted from the hack reached 59 billion won (US$50.33 million). Most of them have already been used, but the remainder totals 1.1 billion won (US$938,406). The hackers sold 950 gift cards, which had a balance worth 110 million won (US$93,841), to domestic gift card retailers at 20 to 25 percent discounted prices. Also, the hacking group provided some of the sale money to the person responsible for the money withdrawal.

The case has shown that mobile gift cards are vulnerable to information leakage, even though they are simple to use. If you know serial and PIN numbers of mobile gift certificates, you can easily use or hand them over to others. However, customers cannot be aware of the fact that their gift certificates are stolen unless they check the balance. Accordingly, the hackers had enough time to distribute them.

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