14 DAY TRIAL // Epson Korea has warned 350,000 website users that their personal information and passwords have been stolen by hackers.
An alert posted on the company's website encourages users to change their passwords immediately and advises them that their names, phone numbers and email addresses have been compromised.
Given the high rate of password reuse amongst users in general, individuals affected by this breach should change their passwords on all websites where they might have used them.
Users might not care if their Epson accounts are illegally accessed, but if the same access codes give attackers access to their email, PayPal or other sensitive accounts then the risks are much higher.
The stolen data also allows attackers to launch targeted attacks against users in an attempt to extract more information.
Because of this, Epsilon Korea customers are advised to be wary of emails claiming to be from the company or other organizations asking them for their personal and financial details.
Any such emails should be confirmed with the corresponding organizations over the phone using numbers obtained through independent means, not those included in the emails.
This is just the latest in a long series of data breaches recorded in South Korea this year. Several incidents affecting a large proportion of the country's population have been announced in the past several months.
Over 35 million people had their personal information stolen last month after hackers broke into the popular Nate and Cyworld portals operated by SK Comms. The company is already facing lawsuits following the incident.
This was followed by last week's data breach on popular Korean TV streaming service GOM TV. The company alerted customers that their names, location, email addresses and passwords have been compromised.
These incidents should serve as a warning for other service providers to start encrypting customer information stored in their databases, especially passwords.