Samsung Card asks police to investigate employee for data leak

SEOUL, Sept. 5 (Yonhap) -- Samsung Card Co., one of South Korea's largest credit card firms, has asked the police to investigate an employee on charges of leaking the personal data of its customers, an industry source said Monday.
According to the source, Samsung Card discovered through an internal investigation that customers' data including their names and mobile phone numbers were leaked. The company turned the case over to police last month.
"We detected a security breach in July and found out one of our staff was involved in the incident. We filed a complaint against him," an official from Samsung Card said.
"He refused to comment, so it's been hard to check exactly how many customers were harmed," he said. "We will watch the police probe."
Police said they are looking into the case at the request of the company.
The case is the third massive data leak in two months in South Korea, stoking fears about lax cyber security.
Two popular Web sites operated by SK Communications Co. were hacked in late July, causing private information of 35 million users to be leaked. In August, Epson Korea Co., the South Korean unit of Japan's Seiko Epson Corp., was also attacked, leaking personal data of some 350,000 customers.