KOR
▲ StarCraft file photo
Employees at a government-funded research institute specializing in national information protection and cybersecurity have been caught and disciplined for playing the game "StarCraft" en masse during working hours.
According to data released on October 12 by Representative Hwang Jung-a of the Democratic Party of Korea, who sits on the National Assembly's Science, Technology, Information, Broadcasting, and Communications Committee, five employees at the National Security Research Institute (NSR) received reprimands after logging onto the StarCraft game server "Battle.net" for up to over 90 hours.
Belonging to the Cybersecurity Training Center, these employees took advantage of managers being away on leave or business trips to access the game server through external educational lines or internal local networks. One employee's daily connection time reached 8 hours and 53 minutes.
They appear to have repeatedly logged in from September to December 2024, exploiting the fact that the Cybersecurity Training Center is located in a separate building away from the main headquarters in Yuseong-gu, Daejeon.
Caught through an internal tip-off, they stated that they logged in to blow off steam after an event, though they claimed they did not actually play the game the entire time they were connected to the server.
The NSR explained that it deducted personal paid annual leave corresponding to the game server connection time, and that employees with insufficient leave had deductions made from their salaries.
Although the NSR determined that a pay cut was necessary for the employee with the longest connection time—who was also caught with other issues such as the improper use of parental leave—it lowered the discipline to a reprimand, the lowest level, taking into account the employee's past commendation from the chairman of the National Research Council of Science and Technology.
Acknowledging insufficient management, the NSR stated, "We have integrated all educational lines into a central management system, monitor all usage logs, and are blocking access to non-business sites such as games."
Representative Hwang Jung-a criticized the incident, saying, "It is a severe lapse in discipline for employees tasked with protecting national cybersecurity to repeatedly access game server logs taking advantage of absent managers," adding that "reducing the punishment to a reprimand on the grounds of past commendations is a slap on the wrist that does not meet the public's expectations."
(Photo provided by Yonhap NewsTV, Yonhap News)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.
