"Don't open a CNN article about 'President's death'." Spam message investigation launched

ⓒYonhap News Agency

Spam messages impersonating police have spread for several years until recently, prompting police to launch an investigation.

Suwon Jungbu Police Station received a petition from police officer A on the 24th asking him to investigate allegations such as defamation under the Information and Communication Network Act and violation of the Telecommunications Basic Act.

Police officer A from the Gyeonggi Southern Police Agency found out the spread of spam messages impersonating his name and submitted a petition.

The message was: "Urgent. Never open a CNN article called 'Yoon Suk Yeol Death.' "Spreading an e-mail titled 'Korea of concern' related to the civil war incident," it reads.

"It is an e-mail containing malicious code produced by North Korea yesterday," he said. "As soon as you open it, your phone is received by a North Korean hacker. Please promote it to those around you."

At the bottom of the message, the real name of police officer A from the Gyeonggi Southern Police Agency is contained, but this is an impersonation message. Impersonation messages mentioning the real name of police officer A have often spread since 2016, and the police have asked for caution.

In 2016, a message titled "Don't open a CNN article called 'Park Geun Hye Resignation'" spread. In the middle of this month, a message with almost the same content was circulated, revising the title of a foreign news article to "Park Geun Hye's death."

Police officer A said, "It is difficult to identify the first author of the message to the former president after a long period of spread, but we judged that there is a possibility of tracking the current president-related message," adding, "As a result, we issued a petition to launch an investigation into the current president-related message."

He then stressed, "We decided to do this because there has been a lot of personal inconvenience with impersonation messages and it is necessary to understand the intention of writing the spam message."

Reporter Lee Yu Na from Digital News Team.