National Security Researchers Caught Playing StarCraft for Hours During Work

Employees at a government-funded research institute specializing in national information protection and cyber security have been disciplined after being caught playing StarCraft together during work hours.

According to data released today (October 12) by Representative Hwang Jeong-a of the Democratic Party of Korea, a member of the National Assembly's Science, Technology, Information, Broadcasting, and Communications Committee, five employees at the National Security Research Institute (NSRI) received reprimands after connecting to Battle.net, the StarCraft game server, for over 90 hours in total during working hours.

Belonging to the Cyber Security Training Center, these individuals took advantage of managers being away on leave or business trips to connect to the game server via external educational lines or internal local networks. One employee's connection time reached 8 hours and 53 minutes in a single day.

They appear to have repeatedly connected between September and December 2024, exploiting the fact that the Cyber Security Training Center is located in a separate building apart from the main headquarters in Yuseong-gu, Daejeon.

Caught through an internal tip-off, they stated they logged on to unwind after an event, though they claimed they were not actually playing the game the entire time they were connected to the server.

The NSRI explained that it deducted annual paid leave equivalent to the game server connection time, and for employees lacking sufficient leave, deductions were made from their salaries.

Although the NSRI judged that a pay cut was necessary for the employee with the longest connection time—who was also caught with other issues such as the misuse of parental leave—it lowered the disciplinary action to a reprimand, the lowest level, taking into account the individual's past receipt of a commendation from the chairperson of the National Research Council of Science and Technology.

Acknowledging insufficient management, the NSRI stated, "We have integrated all educational lines into a centralized management system, monitor all usage logs, and are blocking access to non-business sites such as games."

Representative Hwang Jeong-a criticized the incident, stating, "It is a serious lapse in discipline for employees tasked with protecting national cyber security to repeatedly connect to game server networks taking advantage of the absence of managers. Reducing the penalty to a reprimand on the grounds of a past commendation is a slap on the wrist that does not meet public expectations."

(Photo: Provided by Yonhap News TV, Yonhap News)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.