Tech giant
The leaked data did not contain information regarding bank accounts, credit cards or chat messages in the Line app, a popular social communications tool in
It said the leaked data included users' age group, gender, and some of their service use histories, as well as information regarding the company's business partners and employees, such as email addresses, names and affiliations.
While the company confirmed the data leak on
"We sincerely apologize to our users and all relevant parties for any inconvenience or concern caused. We deeply regret this incident and will do our best to prevent any reoccurrence," the company said in a statement.
It has reported the case to the communications ministry.
LY was formed in October through the merger of
The leakage was caused when malware infected a computer owned by an employee of a subcontractor used by the company's
Naver Cloud and LY share an in-house system for dealing with employee and other personnel information managed with a common authentication system, which allowed unauthorized access into LY's internal system, the company said.
The company initiated an investigation after detecting suspicious access on
It said it is contacting users, business partners and customers individually who it believes are at risk of being directly impacted by the leakage.
As of the end of September, some 96 million people were using the messaging app in
==Kyodo
© Kyodo News International, Inc., source