Korean provider KT deliberately distributed malware to make torrents harder to use

One of the largest telecommunications providers in South Korea, KT (Korea Telecom), has distributed malware to hundreds of thousands of its customers as part of the fight against piracy. This was reported by TechRadar.

Apparently, KT created an entire division dedicated to developing, maintaining, and distributing malware. The entire operation began in May 2020 and at some point affected about 600,000 people.

The victims were users of the P2P file-sharing program Grid, which suddenly started creating strange folders and hiding downloaded files – and in some cases, users’ computers stopped working altogether.

A representative of Grid told the media that the problems were detected only among those users who are KT customers.

Police also conducted an investigation that revealed that the source was one of KT’s data centers, the Bundang IDC Center. The company is suspected of violating the Communications Secrets Protection Act (CSPA) and the Information and Communications Networks Act (ICNA). KT’s CEO resigned.

The police reportedly found that KT had a team that detected and interfered with P2P file transfers, as well as developed, distributed, and exploited malware. The police identified and prosecuted 13 people, including employees of KT and its partner companies.