Leak of National High School Grade Data: Arrest of Teenage Hacker and Chat Room Operator

◀ Anchor ▶

Last year, there was an incident in which the grade data of the national academic evaluation for the second year of high school was leaked.

Previously, the police arrested the operator of the Telegram chat room who first spread this material, followed by an additional hacker who leaked the material.

It was investigated that he committed the crime to show off his hacking skills.

Reporter Kim Min-hyung will tell you.

◀ Report ▶

On February 18th, a file titled ‘All 2nd year individual transcripts’ was uploaded to a Telegram entrance exam data sharing chat room with 18,000 participants.

The grades data containing the names, schools, and ranks of 270,000 high school sophomores across the country who took the national joint academic evaluation last November were leaked from the computer network of the Gyeonggi Provincial Office of Education.

On the 26th of last month, the police, who conducted an investigation for three months, caught the hacker who stole the data.

The main culprit, the teenage hacker, was a college student who entered a computer-related department this year.

From October of last year, when he was a senior in high school, to February of this year, just before entering college, he accessed the computer network of the Gyeonggi Provincial Office of Education more than 200 times and illegally downloaded more than 100 data.

And in February of this year, I handed over the grades to the operator of a Telegram chat room that shares information about the entrance exam.

The two were not even close to each other.

The purpose was to show off hacking skills.

The chat room operator, who was a re-study at the time, uploaded the handed over data to the Telegram room for display.

Eventually, the two were arrested.

A total of nine people were handed over to the prosecution on charges of illegally accessing the education office’s computer network or distributing data.

The school district site that was targeted was too lax.

It has been confirmed that the arrested teenage hacker also taught the method to other teenagers he knew.

[김성택/경기남부경찰청 사이버수사대장]

″It was a relatively easy method that even high school students could download if they knew the illegal download path.″

As a result of an investigation by the Ministry of Education separately from this investigation, it was additionally confirmed that the data of 2.96 million applicants for the academic evaluation conducted in 2019, 21, and 22 were also leaked from the computer network of the Gyeonggi Office of Education.

The Gyeonggi Office of Education said, “Instead of using its own computer network, it entrusted the management of grade data to the Korea Institute of Curriculum and Evaluation like other offices of education in Seoul, Incheon, and Busan.”

This is MBC News Kim Min-hyung.

Video coverage: Jung Min-hwan / Video editing: Lee Hye-ji