A person who broke into the cloud accounts of school staff in the Busan area and illicitly leaked photos and videos has been caught by police. An investigation found that the suspect even produced fabricated videos using the stolen images.

The Cyber Investigation Unit of the Busan office of the National Police Agency announced on the 7th that it had arrested and referred A, in his thirties, on charges including violations of the Information and Communications Network Act and the Act on Punishment of Sexual Crimes. According to police, while working at a contractor entrusted with maintenance of computer equipment for kindergartens and elementary, middle, and high schools in Busan, A is suspected of leaking 221,921 files of personal photos and videos belonging to school staff from July 2021 to September of last year.

A committed the offenses by taking advantage of moments when the staff member who had requested a PC check was away, accessing logged-in cloud accounts such as Google Photos and Naver MyBox and transferring photos and videos to his own USB drive.

Police searched and seized mobile phones, USB drives, and external hard drives from the residence and office of A. They found that he had created 20 ‘deepfake’ videos by attaching the faces of the leaked staff to pornographic material. They also confirmed additional allegations that he filmed up the skirts of staff on 45 occasions and downloaded and possessed child and youth sexual exploitation material from pornography sites. Police added charges including violations of the Act on the Protection of Children and Juveniles from Sexual Abuse.

The crimes of A were exposed when a USB drive he had accidentally left behind was found by a victim. Upon receiving the report, police seized and searched the smartphone and PC of A. It was confirmed that there were no indications that the deepfake videos had leaked onto the internet.

Police warned that overreliance on outsourced personnel entrusted with computer maintenance can create this kind of ‘security gap’. An official at the Busan office of the National Police Agency said, “Set a password for the PC screensaver, and if you have to step away during an inspection, ask a colleague to keep an eye on it,” and “When handing over a PC for inspection, logging out of accounts such as Google or Kakao can also help prevent this kind of crime to some extent.”