It stemmed from a charity organization.
1 hour ago
An incident has occurred in which the real names and social security numbers of celebrities and other well-known high-value donors were leaked by the Community Chest of Korea’s Fruit of Love charity.
According to Yonhap News on March 5, during the process of posting its 2024 financial settlement data n its official website in April last year, the orgfanization uploaded a file containing the personal information of high-value donors, including their names and social security numbers, without any redaction, publishing the original file as it was.
The organization reportedly did not realize the mistake for nearly a year and only deleted the file on March 4, 2026. Because sensitive personal information such as names and resident registration numbers had been exposed online for an extended period, concerns are being raised about potential secondary damage, including identity theft and voice phishing scams.
The list included about 600 individuals, including major figures from the political and business sectors as well as well-known celebrities who donated more than ₩20.0 million KRW (about $13,500 USD).
According to the report, Fruit Of Love stated, “We plan to send an apology notice to those whose information was leaked and provide phone notifications informing them of the incident.”
Following the incident, anxiety has grown further after it was also revealed that Hope Bridge Korea Disaster Relief Association, a legally designated disaster relief organization, uploaded its 2022–2024 financial settlement data to its website on February 5 as well, without masking donors’ real names, social security numbers, or donation amounts, resulting in another personal information leak. The scale of the leaked personal information in this case is reported to involve around 1,000 people.