Executives quit after massive South Korea data theft The alleged theft of 104m credit card account details by a lone security contractor has left thousands of South Koreans forming long lines in bank branches to cancel their cards, as three dozen financial executives resign in disgrace. The customer records were stolen from three of South Korea's major credit card companies over the course of a year beginning in December 2012, the Financial Services Commission said. The data theft was allegedly carried out by a contractor tasked with improving security systems at Kookmin Card, NongHyup Card and Lotte Card. Prosecutors say that the man, now in custody, sold the data to loan companies, who used it for marketing "cold calls." Despite official reassurances that there was no risk of fraudulent transactions, more than 500,000 people have cancelled their credit cards since the fraud was revealed late last week, regulators said on Tuesday. Among them was Mrs Hwang, a 51-year-old housewife who cancelled her card at a branch of Lotte Card in Seoul - after spending her final bonus points on French cosmetics at the Lotte Department Store. "From now on, I'll pay for things by cash," she said. This is the latest of a series of breaches of South Korean financial institutions" internal computer systems. Last March three South Korean banks succumbed to malicious code attacks - blamed by Seoul on North Korea - while last month it was revealed that records had been stolen from the local subsidiaries of Citibank and Standard Chartered. An FSC spokeswoman said that the information from the credit card companies comprised basic personal details such as home addresses and telephone numbers, as well as financial information such as credit card numbers and expiry dates. However, she added that there were no concerns about fraudulent transactions: no security numbers or passcodes had been stolen, and the data had not been circulated more widely than the loan promoters, she added. She added that a "task force" was working under the supervision of the prime minister on measures to prevent a recurrence of the breach, with more details to be announced on Wednesday. This follows a determined initial response to the scandal by FSC chairman Shin Je-yoon, who said on Monday that the chief executives of the three should take responsibility for the leak. All three have since tendered their resignations, as have 26 more executives at KB Financial Group, and eight others at Lotte Card. The mass resignations may bolster complaints, widespread among industry analysts and executives, that South Korean financial companies are excessively beholden to the instructions of the government and regulators. But the conservatively-run institutions were unlikely to be severely disrupted by the departures, said Michael Na, an analyst at Nomura. "The Korean financial institutions are pretty self-sustained, and well managed - even without them the companies should be fine," he said. The frequent security breaches in South Korea's financial sector have come despite a stringent regulatory regime that slows down online banking and shopping. All online transactions require the use of a government-provided "digital certificate" and a range of applications using Microsoft's outdated ActiveX system. "[Financial companies] are focused too much on the client environment and didn't focus enough on their own internal systems," said Lee Dong-hwan, chief technology officer of Paygate, an online payments company. Additional reporting by Kang Buseong