SK Telecom Shares Plunge After Cyberattack

Shares of SK Telecom fell as much as 8.5% on Monday, reaching their lowest level since August 2024, after South Korea’s largest mobile carrier disclosed a major customer data leak caused by a cyberattack, Heekyong Yang and Jihoon Lee reported for Reuters.

SK Telecom shares closed down 6.7%, marking their steepest daily decline since March 2020. I Photo: SK Telecom Facebook

The company said in a statement it would take full responsibility for damages resulting from the breach, which was detected on April 18. SK Telecom described the incident as a large-scale data leak caused by malware but provided few additional details.

To mitigate the fallout, SK Telecom will offer free universal subscriber identity module (USIM) replacements at more than 2,600 retail outlets nationwide, starting Monday.

The carrier also encouraged users to enroll in its USIM Protection Service, which it claims offers protection comparable to replacing a USIM card.

About 5.54 million of SK Telecom’s 23 million subscribers had signed up for the service as of Sunday. SK Telecom shares closed down 6.7%, marking their steepest daily decline since March 2020, compared to a 0.1% rise in the benchmark KOSPI.