 |
At a press conference held at the SUPEX Hall in SKT Tower, located in Jung-gu, Seoul, Yoo bowed his head in apology to the public. (Photo credit: Yonhap News) |
[Alpha Biz= Kim Jisun] On April 28, the first day of SK Telecom’s free USIM (Universal Subscriber Identity Module) replacement program, a total of 230,000 customers completed the process, according to the company.
As of 6 p.m. on April 28, approximately 230,000 users had successfully replaced their USIM cards, and 2.63 million reservations for replacements had been made.
In response to a recent cyberattack in which portions of customers' USIM information were stolen by hackers, SK Telecom began offering free USIM card replacements starting at 10 a.m. on April 28. Eligible customers include those who subscribed to SK Telecom's services before midnight on April 18, when protective measures such as system isolation were implemented following the incident.
From early in the morning, SK Telecom’s authorized stores and T World outlets across the country were crowded with customers seeking to replace their USIM cards. Although SK Telecom had set up an online reservation system to handle high demand, hundreds of thousands of users accessed the site simultaneously at times.
Customers can select their preferred store for replacement by searching by store name or address on the reservation page. Filtering options are also available to display only stores currently accepting appointments. Store information, including location, business hours, and contact numbers, is provided during the search.
Once a reservation is completed, customers receive a confirmation text from the selected store. A second notification, including the visit date, store name, and store address, will be sent later in order of reservation. Customers must bring valid identification and their reservation confirmation message to the store to receive a new USIM card personally.
As of April 28, approximately 7.41 million customers had subscribed to SK Telecom’s "USIM Protection Service," which helps prevent crimes involving illegal USIM card duplication. In total, over 10 million customers have either reserved or completed their USIM replacement or subscribed to the protection service.
This figure represents about 41% of the combined 25 million users of SK Telecom’s main service (23 million) and its MVNO (Mobile Virtual Network Operator) partners (1.87 million).
Despite the high demand, SK Telecom is currently facing a shortage of USIM cards. The company announced on April 27 that it plans to secure an additional five million USIM cards by the end of May.
On the evening of April 19, SK Telecom detected signs that hackers had implanted malware in internal systems and stolen portions of customers' USIM information. Since then, the company has implemented multiple protective measures, including strengthening its Fraud Detection System (FDS) to block abnormal authentication attempts.
AlphaBIZ Kim Jisun(stockmk2020@alphabiz.co.kr)
