SKT Strives to Reassure Customers: "No Account Theft Possible, Unrelated to A.Dot"

Fact Check at the Briefing on the 2nd: Setting the Record Straight
Emphasis on SIM Protection Service... Addressing Concerns Over Cloned Phones
"Personal and Account Information Unrelated to the Data Breach"

SK Telecom has made it clear that it is impossible to steal an individual's financial assets using only SIM card information. The company also corrected the misconception that voice recording files from its artificial intelligence (AI) service, A.Dot, could be extracted.

Ryu Junghwan, Vice President of SK Telecom, is speaking at a briefing on SIM card information leakage held at the SKT Tower in Jung-gu, Seoul on the 2nd. Photo by Yonhap News

Ryu Junghwan, Head of the Network Infrastructure Center and Vice President of SKT, held a briefing on the 2nd to conduct a "fact check" in order to correct rumors and media reports and to reduce public anxiety caused by the hacking incident.

Below is the full Q&A from the fact check session.

◆If someone knows only my SIM card information, can they steal money from my bank account?

=No. In order to steal financial assets, personal information or passwords required for financial transactions are necessary. However, such information is not stored on the SIM card, so it is impossible to steal financial assets using only SIM card information.

◆If my SIM card is cloned, can my contacts, text messages, and applications stored on my phone also be cloned?

=No. Contacts, text messages, and apps can be stored either in the phone's internal memory or in the SIM card's memory. The SIM card consists of a network-linked component and a physical memory component. The information leaked in this incident pertains only to the network-linked component. Therefore, contacts, text messages, and mobile applications cannot be cloned as a result of this incident.

◆I heard that a SIM card functions like a resident registration number. Does it contain all my personal and account information?

=No. The SIM card does not contain personal information such as your name or resident registration number, nor does it contain account information. The SIM card consists of (1) subscription/authentication information linked to the network and (2) information directly stored by the subscriber. The information leaked in this incident pertains only to the network-linked component, so personal and account information are unrelated to this leak.

◆Is it possible to secretly use calls or messaging services with a cloned phone?

=Cloning itself is impossible because it is blocked by the SIM protection service and FDS (Fraud Detection System).

◆If I subscribe to the SIM replacement/protection service, do I still need to take additional security measures in my banking app?

=Bank authentication is unrelated to this breach. To conduct financial transactions in a banking app, additional authentication methods such as passwords or OTPs are required, and this information is not related to the recent incident.

◆Can all A.Dot voice recording files stored on the SKT server be downloaded from a cloned phone?

=No. This leak is unrelated to the A.Dot server. Additionally, A.Dot voice recording files are stored on individual devices, not on the server.