Seoul, Oct 21 South Korean President Lee Jae Myung on Tuesday called for stronger measures against global internet phishing scams, following a series of job scams involving the abduction and detention of South Koreans in Cambodia.
Lee made the call during a Cabinet meeting, urging relevant authorities to come up with an "extraordinary" government response to tackle the issue rather than relying on conventional methods, Yonhap News Agency reported.
"We need measures that are stronger and tougher than those currently in place for international crimes and they must be implemented accordingly," Lee said, noting that voice phishing and transnational crimes have long posed serious challenges for South Korea.
Lee noted the possibility that the scammers involved may have political connections, saying the victims were systematically lured and abducted to work in scam centers.
He called on Yoon Chang-ryeol, chief of the Office for Government Policy Coordination who oversees the task force on voice-phishing, as well as the foreign ministry and the police, to come up with a new and more effective approach.
Lee added that he had given separate instructions to the National Intelligence Service, the country's spy agency.
A group of 64 South Koreans allegedly involved in online scam rings while detained in Cambodia were repatriated to Seoul under police custody Saturday.
Earlier in the day, the remains of a late South Korean university student allegedly tortured to death by a criminal organization near Bokor Mountain in southern Cambodia in August returned home.
On October 17, South Korea's interior ministry said it has strengthened security measures for online government systems after detecting signs of the government's administration platform being hacked.
The move came two months after Phrack, an online cybersecurity publication, reported in August that South Korean government branches and companies appeared to have been targeted by hackers.
“In mid-July, (we) confirmed signs through the National Intelligence Service (NIS) that an external internet PC accessed the Onnara system via the Government-Virtual Private Network (G-VPN),” the ministry said.
The Onnara system is the government's online work platform, which manages official documents and handles internal workflow.
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