[Market Focus] LG Uplus, KT Weaken on News of Emergency Hacking Investigation

LG Uplus and KT, which have come under hacking suspicion, are showing weakness in early trading on September 2.

As of 9:16 a.m. on this day, LG Uplus shares were trading at 13,920 won on the Korea Exchange, down 3.60% from the previous trading day. The stock opened at 14,240 won and has continued to decline.

At the same time, KT shares were also down 3.38% from the previous session, trading at 51,500 won.

Investor sentiment appears to have weakened following news that the government has launched an emergency investigation to determine whether LG Uplus and KT were hacked. The Ministry of Science and ICT and the Korea Internet & Security Agency have reportedly been conducting their own investigation since July.

Previously, global hacking magazine "Phreak Magazine" reported that, after analyzing 8GB of leaked data from the South Korean government and companies obtained from the North Korea-linked hacker group "Kimsuky," it found information related to KT and LG Uplus. The leaked data reportedly included source code for LG Uplus's internal server management account system (APPM), information on 8,938 servers, 42,526 accounts, and IDs of employees and partner companies. Access records were found to have continued until April of this year. In KT's case, there were also indications that SSL certificates had been leaked.