Oh, 39, the husband of the founder of a well-known activewear company and a former inside director, was also sentenced to one year in prison and remanded to custody in court in his appellate trial on charges of illegal transactions with a North Korean hacker group.

According to the legal community on the 15th, the Criminal Appellate Division 1 of the Seoul Western District Court (Presiding Judge Ban Jeong-woo) on the 13th dismissed the appeal filed by Oh and upheld the lower court sentence of one year in prison and one year of disqualification for violating the National Security Act (providing convenience, meetings·communications, etc.).

Prosecutors allege that from July 2014 to May 2015, he operated an illegal private server for an online game and, to obtain a hacking program to neutralize security software, made repeated contact with North Korean hacker ‘Eric’. Between October 2014 and March 2015, he received a hacking program and paid 23.8 million won in six installments in return. He also commissioned cyberattacks such as hacking and DDoS against competing private servers.

Eric was known as the development team leader at the Rungnado Information Center of Korea Rungnado General Trading Company, under Office 39, a foreign currency-earning body of the Workers Party of Korea, and as a dangerous figure with capabilities related to DDoS attacks and cyberterrorism. Although it posed as a legitimate trading company, investigations found that in reality it produced and sold illegal programs, such as auto-hunting software for online games that could be misused for DDoS attacks, and was used as a channel to raise governing funds for North Korea.

The court of first instance stated, “Exchanging with North Korean members who raise governing funds for North Korea and providing them with money pose a grave threat to national security,” and added, “There are also prior convictions such as fraud, injury, and defamation, indicating that his awareness of the law is markedly deficient.”

Oh is the husband of Shin Ae-ryeon, former CEO and founder of the yoga-wear brand Andar, and previously served as a director at Andar, leading online distribution and marketing.