 |
(Photo = Yonhap news) |
[Alpha Biz= Reporter Kim Minyoung] The Japanese government's pressure on Naver Line began last year when the Naver cloud (virtual server) hacking incident took place.
According to The Chosun Ilbo, Line Yahoo said that 510,000 personal information such as Line app users, customers, and Naver employees may have been leaked in November last year. Currently, Line Yahoo's server is in Japan, but this server is managed through Naver Cloud. A hacker hacked into Naver's cloud and accessed Line's customer information. At the time, Line Yahoo said, "There was a third party's fraudulent approach in October through the related company, Naver Cloud Korea."
Personal information known to have been secured by hackers at the time includes user age, gender, purchase history, employee name, and e-mail address. Sensitive information such as users' bank accounts and credit cards has not been leaked, Japanese media reported. Cases where this has been made public have not yet been confirmed. Some say that the damage is not so large. More than 500 million users' personal information was leaked when Facebook was hacked in 2021.
Nevertheless, the Japanese government is strongly responding to the demand for 'sale of shares'. Japan's Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications decided to provide administrative guidance last month and receive reports on progress in measures to prevent recurrence every three months. A little more than a month after the first administrative guidance, the Japanese government decided to conduct a second administrative guidance, NHK reported.
Analysts say the incident could affect other overseas businesses of the Naver line as well as Line Yahoo. Line has 55 million users in Thailand and 22 million users in Taiwan. If Naver has to liquidate its stake in the Japanese line, it could receive similar demands from these countries.
Alphabiz Kim Minyoung (kimmy@alphabiz.co.kr)
