90% of a bike rental service's user data ended up in the hands of two teenagers. Police learned about this by accident - through the investigation of another crime.
90% of a bike rental service's user data ended up in the hands of two teenagers. Police learned about this by accident - through the investigation of another crime.
This cybercrime occurred in South Korea. In June 2024, two schoolchildren hacked the Seoul-based public bicycle service Ttareungyi, which officially has more than 5 million registered users, The Register reports .
But the teenagers were only arrested this year. At the time of the crime, they were in middle school, and now they are high school students.
Their involvement in the Ttareungyi hack was only discovered as part of a separate investigation into a DDoS attack on a private transportation rental company in April 2024, which, according to the police, was carried out by one of the suspects.
The guys met on Telegram and became close through their shared interest in information security. One day, they decided to carry out an attack to test and demonstrate their skills.
The hack resulted in the theft of data from 4.62 million people. The stolen information included IDs, phone numbers, home addresses, emails, dates of birth, gender, and weight data.
Police said there was no evidence of the compromised data being leaked or sold, although investigators believe the intent of both was to profit from the theft.
