Two suspects in KT mobile payment breach to be sent to prosecution

Two men suspected of making illegal micropayments by hacking users of mobile carrier KT will be transferred to the prosecution this week for further investigation, police said Wednesday. The Gyeonggi Nambu Provincial Police said it plans to send the suspects — aged 48 and 44 and both Chinese nationals of Korean ethnicity — to the Ansan branch of the Suwon District Prosecutors Office on Thursday on charges of fraud by use of a computer and other offenses. The 48-year-old is accused of making small unauthorized mobile payments, such as purchasing gift certificates and recharging travel cards, by hacking the phones of KT users with the help of an unregistered femtocell, or a micro base station, connected to the carrier's communication network between Aug. 5 and Sept. 5. The other suspect allegedly cashed the unauthorized payments, valued by KT at over 240 million won ($172,000), and transferred most of it to an account in China through a money exchange in South Korea. The owner of the money exchange, identified as a Chinese national in their 60s, has also been booked on suspicion of conWeiter zum vollständigen Artikel bei Korea Times Weiter zum vollständigen Artikel bei Korea Times