Punishment for "torrents": A strange virus attacked more than 600,000 people by disconnecting PC
The JTBC media recently found that KT Corporation, one of the largest telecommunications providers in South Korea, deliberately infected more than 600,000 users with harmful software through their torrents. It all started in May 2020, when the Korean Vido Cloud Services Services received many users' complaints. The company found that its Grid program, based on a peer -to -peer exchange of Bittorrent files, was compromised.
The Webhard representative reported that the company was most likely attacked by hackers. During the further investigation, the company noted that all the victims of the Internet provider was KT Corporation. It turned out that problems were only for his clients. The malicious program on users' computers created strange folders or made files invisible. It completely switched off the Webhard program, in some cases, the PC was switched off. Webhard went to the police.
Investigators found that the attack was coming from the KT data center, located south of Seoul. The authorities said KT may have violated the laws of South Korea, in particular the law on the protection of the secrecy of communication and the law on information and communication networks. Thirteen Provider staff and several subcontractors have been charged, but the investigation is still ongoing.
KT stated that she directly installed a special software to her customers who used the Webhard Grid Service, as it allegedly caused damage and the provider had no choice but to control it. However, the main problem here was not the use of the Webhard BitTorrent protocol, but the installation of harmful software on client computers without their consent. Webhard and Kt earlier quarreled because of the use of Grid Service.
The fact is that a huge number of users of this program created load on the KT network. In order to resolve the problem, companies went to court that issued a decision in favor of CT. The decision stated that Webhard did not pay KT for using the network and did not explain to its users in detail how the service works. Thus, KT decided that it would be reasonable to block webhard network traffic. But instead of blocking IP addresses, KT infected users by Grid by a pest.
Unfortunately, most of the victims were individuals, not enterprises or corporations, and they had no idea what was happening. Kt, most likely, just wanted to prevent customers from using the Webhard Bittorrent file exchange service. But whatever the intention of KT, this step has led to the disappearance of files and damage to users. Earlier, we wrote that hundreds of thousands of people risk losing money because of Chrome and Microsoft Word mistakes.