South Korea
March 19, 2020: Samsung Data Breach
Samsung admitted what it calls a "small number" of users could indeed read other people's personal data following an unexplained Find my Mobile notification.
Users said they found strangers' personal data displayed to them. Find My Mobile is a Samsung app that comes pre-loaded with its Android devices and can only be disabled, not uninstalled. The only way to uninstall Samsung apps is to wipe the operating system completely and install a different ROM.
The company has admitted a data security breach did occur.
A company spokeswoman said, "A technical error resulted in a small number of users being able to access the details of another user. As soon as we became of aware of the incident, we removed the ability to log in to the store on our website until the issue was fixed."
July 28, 2022: Samsung Hit in Cyberattack, Again
For the second time this year in a span of less than six months, electronics giant South Korea-based Samsung, suffered a data breach this past July, but the company did not discover it until early August.
After discovery, the company found the attackers stole personal data from customers.
“At Samsung, security is a top priority,” the company said in an advisory it posted September 2 almost a month after discovering the incident. “We recently discovered a cybersecurity incident that affected some customer information.
“In late July 2022, an unauthorized third party acquired information from some of Samsung’s U.S. systems. On or around August 4, 2022, we determined through our ongoing investigation that personal information of certain customers was affected. We have taken actions to secure the affected systems, and have engaged a leading outside cybersecurity firm and are coordinating with law enforcement."
This was the second attack against Samsun this year and third since 2020.
March 5, 2022: Samsung Hit in Cyberattack
South Korea-based Samsung suffered a cyberattack over the weekend, but it doesn’t see there being any impact on its business or customers, company officials said Monday.
South American hacking group Lapsus$ said it had stolen 190GB of confidential data, including source code, from the tech giant’s servers. The group also posted snapshots of data online.
Samsung confirmed in a statement there was a security breach, but it said there was no compromise of customer personal information.
“We were recently made aware that there was a security breach relating to certain internal company data. Immediately after discovering the incident, we strengthened our security system,” the company said.
May 14, 2021: South Korea’s Atomic Agency Suffers Hack Attack
The intrusion took place in May by what is believed to be an attack group operating out of North Korea, said a KAERI spokesperson. The incident occurred May 14 and the attackers got in through a vulnerability in a virtual private network (VPN) server. KAERI is the government organization that conducts research on nuclear power and nuclear fuel technology.