[Anchor]

A user of an overseas cloud service was suddenly billed 1 billion won for just four days of usage. It turned out the account had been hacked. Even though a dispute resolution committee ruled that it was not the user's fault, both the overseas headquarters and the local reseller that sold the service are passing the buck.

Reporter Park Jaehyeon has the story.

[Reporter]

A man in his 30s, surnamed Seo, was using Amazon's cloud service through an official local reseller.

In October 2024, Seo received an email from the reseller.

The email stated that his usage fee, which normally hovered around 80 won per day, had spiked to 210 million won, and hacking was suspected.

When he urgently checked his account, he found that massive workloads had been processed over four days from at least eight countries, including Bahrain and Indonesia, racking up over 1 billion won in costs.

It is presumed that someone hacked Seo's account to mine cryptocurrency.

Though the exact circumstances of the hack remain unknown, the entire usage fee was billed directly to Seo.

[Seo / Cloud Service User: I was searching the web at night. Wondering what happens if I file for personal bankruptcy or rehabilitation. I thought, 'Surely I'll be protected, just like when a credit card is stolen.']

Following protests, the fee was reduced to 400 million won, but Seo, unable to accept this, sought relief from the Korea Consumer Agency.

After over a year of deliberation, the Consumer Dispute Settlement Commission ruled in July that it was difficult to conclude the incident occurred due to Seo's negligence, noting that the reseller only detected the sudden surge in usage four days after it began, and therefore Seo had no obligation to pay.

However, the reseller rejected the mediation decision.

[Seo / Cloud Service User: Even if I bear some responsibility for the charges, I feel devastated that the amount grew this large when there was nothing I could do. That anxiety is always there in my daily life.]

Amazon responded that the matter is between the reseller and the customer, making it irrelevant to them, while the domestic reseller stated it is currently looking for ways to minimize the user's burden.

As hacking using artificial intelligence surges, similar disputes are expected to increase.

[Kim Tae-hoon / Professor, Graduate School of Metaverse, Sogang University: These types of incidents are going to become more frequent, so there is a need to standardize response protocols, much like traffic accident manuals.]

Some suggest the need for an organization like the UK's ombudsman system, which conducts professional investigations and issues binding arbitration decisions.

(Video Reporter: Park Jin-ho, Cho Chang-hyun | Video Editing: Choi Jin-hwa | Design: Lee Jun-ho, VJ: Lee Ji-hwan)