While Nexon was recently hacked, it is not the first to suffer from cyber criminals in Korea, with other companies like online commerce giant Auction, the Korean unit of eBay, and social media provider SK Communications all having their online security compromised. This is an issue, since these sites are required by law to collect personal information.

“How many more massive data leaks will it take to finally convince everyone that the mountain of personal data floating out there really shouldn’t be there ” said Jang Yeo-gyeong, a computer security expert at activist group Jinbo Net. “It’s incredible that the government continues to let private companies collect this information and use it to generate profit when the data should be used for administrative purposes only.”

The hacking attack at Nexon compromised over 13 million accounts, many of which belonged to underage users. The data leak at SK Communications in August breached more than 35 million accounts, astounding considering South Korea has a total population around 50 million people and an economically-active population of 25 million.

Nearly all Korean Internet services require users to submit their resident registration numbers for everything from banking to checking email, checking emails, and yes, even playing online games. The 13-digit code (the Korean equivalent of the social security number) includes a person’s sex, date of birth and site of registration, which means they expose much more than comparable systems in the U.S. and Japan, which are based on random numbering.

“Nexon, despite its ineptitude in data protection, has every excuse to clang on to its files of personal identification numbers as policymakers have been imposing limits on how much time youngsters can spend playing their favorite online computer games,” wrote Kim Tong-hyung. “The online gaming curbs, which government officials claim are inevitable for combating compulsive gaming and addiction among young gamers, prevent users under the age of 16 from playing between midnight and 6 a.m. All gamers under the age of 18 are also required to make verifiable real-name registrations when subscribing to online game services.”

Source: Korea Times