120,000 Home Cameras Breached: Privacy at Risk in the Digital Age

South Korean police revealed that over 120,000 internet-connected home cameras were hacked, with footage exploited to create and sell sexually explicit videos. Four suspects have been arrested in connection with the scheme.

National Police Agency (NPA) of South Korea has issued an official statement confirming the arrests of four suspects who hacked approximately 120,000 home and business IP cameras to produce and sell sexually exploitative material.

About 120,000 IP cameras (often called “home cams”) installed in private homes, karaoke rooms, Pilates studios, and clinics were compromised.

Four individuals were arrested. Importantly, police clarified that they acted independently and were not accomplices. The suspects created and sold hundreds of sexual abuse videos on overseas websites. Police noted they are working with overseas agencies to track website operators and buyers involved in distributing the material.

The NPA highlighted that weak passwords and poor security settings on IP cameras were the main vulnerabilities exploited. The case is being treated under South Korea’s strict digital sex crime laws, which have been strengthened in recent years after similar scandals. Authorities urged citizens to immediately change default passwords and update firmware to prevent further breaches.  

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Key details of the case

• Scale of the breach: More than 120,000 surveillance cameras in homes and businesses across South Korea were compromised.
• Targets: Cameras were placed in private homes, karaoke rooms, Pilates studios, and clinics, making the intrusion deeply invasive.
• Suspects: Police charged four individuals. One suspect alone hacked 63,000 cameras and produced 545 exploitative videos, earning about 35 million won (~₹21 lakh) from sales.
• Method: Hackers exploited weak security in IP cameras, such as default or easy-to-guess passwords.
• Content: The stolen footage was turned into sexually exploitative material and distributed online.

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Broader implications

• Privacy crisis: This case highlights how vulnerable consumer-grade surveillance devices can be when users fail to change default settings or manufacturers neglect strong security protocols.
• Legal crackdown: South Korea has strict laws against digital sex crimes, and this incident is expected to intensify calls for tougher regulation of surveillance technology.
• Global warning: Similar risks exist worldwide. Any internet-connected device with a camera or microphone can be hijacked if not properly secured.

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How to protect yourself

• Change default passwords immediately on all smart devices.
• Enable two-factor authentication where possible.
• Update firmware regularly to patch vulnerabilities.
• Avoid cheap, unverified brands that may lack proper security safeguards.
• Use encrypted networks and avoid exposing devices directly to the internet.

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This incident is a stark reminder that digital safety is inseparable from physical privacy. The exploitation of everyday devices for sexual crimes shows how technology can be weaponized when security is neglected.

Meta in Talks to Buy S.Korean AI Chip Startup FuriosaAI

Meta Platforms is reportedly in discussions to acquire FuriosaAI, a South Korean AI chip startup. The deal could potentially be finalized as early as this month.

Meta has been heavily investing in AI infrastructure, including developing its own AI chips like the Meta Training and Inference Accelerator (MTIA) and the latest Next Gen MTIA.

FuriosaAI specializes in developing AI inference chips for data centers and has created its own AI chip, RNGD, which offers three times the performance per watt compared to Nvidia’s advanced AI chip, the H100. The acquisition could help Meta reduce its dependence on Nvidia and enhance its custom chip development efforts.

FuriosaAI RNGD chip

This acquisition could significantly boost Meta's custom chip development efforts, especially amid the ongoing Nvidia chip shortage and increasing demand for alternative solutions.

Founded by June Paik, a former engineer at Samsung Electronics and AMD, FuriosaAI benefits from the expertise and experience of its leadership. FuriosaAI specializes in developing AI inference chips for data centers, and their chips are known for their high performance and energy efficiency.

Compared to other AI chip companies like Nvidia, Cerebras Systems, and Intel, FuriosaAI's focus on efficiency and inference, along with its strategic partnerships and strong backing, positions it as a competitive player in the AI chip market.

The South Korean startup has raised significant funding from notable investors like Naver, Korea Development Bank, and DSC Investment. This financial backing supports its research and development efforts.

FuriosaAI has also collaborated with Taiwanese custom chip maker Global Unichip Corp. and SK Hynix for high-performance memory chips.

Meta aims to develop custom AI chips, like the Meta Training and Inference Accelerator (MTIA), to efficiently handle AI workloads, particularly for ranking and recommendation systems. These chips are designed to improve performance and energy efficiency. These chips are designed to improve performance and energy efficiency.

Meta's investment in AI technology is a strategic move to stay ahead of competitors, anticipate market trends, and deliver more personalized and engaging experiences to users.

Meta's investment in AI technology is a strategic move to stay ahead of competitors, anticipate market trends, and deliver more personalized and engaging experiences to users.

In the last two years, Meta Platforms has made several acquisitions to bolster its AI and virtual reality capabilities.

Within Unlimited was Acquired by Meta in February, 2023, Within Unlimited specializes in virtual reality content, including the popular fitness app Supernatural. In 2022, Meta acquired Luminous to enhance Meta's AI capabilities, particularly in computer vision and augmented reality.

S. Korea's Simmtech to Invest ₹1,250 Crore for Setting Up Semiconductor Plant in Sanand, Gujarat

South Korea-based Simmtech, which manufactures high-layer printed circuit boards (PCB) for semiconductors, has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Gujarat Government to invest over Rs 1,250 core in the state. The MOU was inked in the ongoing Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit 2024.

Simmtech will set up operations to support Micron's semiconductor plant in Gujarat.

Simmtech, which has been concentrating on developing and manufacturing High-layer PCBs for semiconductors since it was established in 1987, will setup the plant in Gujarat's Sanand, where American semiconductor firm Micron’s plant is also under construction.

The MoU was exchanged in the presence of Union Minister of IT and Electronics Ashwini Vaishnaw and Gujarat Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel. At the inaugural session held on Wednesday, Simmtech CEO Jeffery Chun had announced that the company is ready to invest in India.

This investment firom South Korean firm is expected to create over 1,000 direct and indirect job opportunities in the state.

Simmtech is world’s largest semiconductor packaging IC substrates and high-density interconnect printed circuit board (PCB) manufacturer.The company has advanced manufacturing plant in South Korea, China, Japan and Malaysia.

Additionally, in this year's Vibrant Gujarat Summit, cooperation agreements were forged between Micron and Nantech, as well as Cisco and Nantech.

On this occasion, the Union Minister of Electronics and Railways, Shri Ashwini Vaishnaw, also announced that Gujarat is poised to manufacture the country's first Make in India chip in 2024. During the seminar, Sanjay Mehrotra, the CEO of Micron, conveyed his appreciation for the exceptional cooperation from the state government and the Government of India. He stated that India is on the brink of establishing a robust semiconductor supply chain in the near future. 

Former OpenAI Execs-Founded Anthropic Raises $100 Mn from S. Korea's Largest Telco To Build LLM for Telcos

Anthropic PBC, a US-based artificial intelligence startup and public-benefit corporation, founded by former members of OpenAI, has received investment of $100 million from South Korea's largest Telcom firm SK Telecom.

This follows the previous investment from SK Telecom Venture Capital (SKTVC), the Silicon Valley-based venture capital arm of SK Telecom.

SK Telecom has entered into a partnership agreement with Anthropic to build a large language model (LLM) customized for telcos.

Under the partnership agreement, SK Telecom and Anthropic will jointly develop a multilingual LLM that supports languages, including Korean, English, German, Japanese, Arabic and Spanish.

SK Telecom and Anthropic will work together to bring the multilingual LLM to the Telco AI Platform currently being built by the Global Telco AI Alliance.

In May this year, Anthropic had raised $450 million from investors including Alphabet Inc's Google and Spark Capital. As of July 2023, Anthropic had raised $1.5 billion in Funding.

Founded in 2021 by CEO Dario Amodei and his sister Daniela, former employees of the senior team at OpenAI, Anthropic describes itself as “dedicated to building AI systems that people can rely on and generating research about the opportunities and risks of AI”.

Anthropic differ from OpenAI as — while OpenAI uses reinforcement learning from human feedback (RLHF) to improve safety and reduce harm, Anthropic employs reinforcement learning from AI feedback (RLAIF). The feedback, where one AI model corrects another, is based on a “list of rules or principles,” or what Anthropic calls “Constitutional AI.”

S. Korea's EveR 6 Becomes World's 1st Robotic Orchestra Conductor

EveR 6, a robot conductor, led a practice session of the Korean National Orchestra at the National Theater of Korea in central Seoul on Monday of last week.

Later on Friday evening, the android robot took the conductor's podium in Seoul to lead a performance by South Korea's national orchestra, marking the first such attempt in the country, reported news agency Reuters.

Leading two of the five musical compositions by itself and another one with a human conductor, the robot, with a humanoid face, first bowed to the audience and started waving its arms to control the tempo of the live show.

EveR 6 was developed by the Korea Institute of Industrial Technology and is now touted as the world's first robotic orchestra conductor.

The 1.8-meter and two-handed EveR 6 robot guided more than 60 musicians of the National Orchestra of Korea who were playing traditional Korean instruments.

Ironically, EveR 6's critical weakness is that it cannot listen.

Citing Lee Young-ju, an audience member who studies traditional Korean music, the Reuters report further said that "the robot's moves, though impeccable in keeping the rhythm, lacked "breath" - or the ability to keep the orchestra ready to engage collectively and instantly - which he said was essential in performance". "It seemed there was some work to be done for the robot to do the job," Lee said.

All images from — National Theater of Korea@Twitter

S.Korea's Largest Mobile-Games Developer Launches Its Own Blockchain and Cryptocurrency; To Expand to NFT, Metaverse

South Korea's largest mobile-gaming company, Netmarble Corp., has created its own proprietary blockchain platform called MBX to serve as the base for its new dapp (decentralized application) video games.

MBX is a Klaytn-based blockchain ecosystem. Klaytn Network is a global public blockchain platform developed by Ground X, the blockchain affiliate of the leading South Korean Internet company, Kakao. MBX will utilize a new MBX-based cryptocurrency.

Netmarble plans to release six blockchain games in 2022, with the first releasing this month. 

By applying blockchain technology to games being developed or serviced by MBX, Netmarble aims to strengthen the fun of games focusing on building an ecosystem where user participation and reasonable rewards are provided. The official service is scheduled to open this month.

MBX will be used as the key currency in the MBX ecosystem, and MBX Wallet will be used as the wallet. Starting with the blockchain-based content update in 'A3: Still Alive (Global)' in March, it plans to link various games and technologies in the future, and expand the content to NFT and Metaverse.

Before the MBX service launch, Netmarble will introduce the official SNS page on the 28th, and on March 7th, the MBX white paper will be released through the official website opening.

In addition, to commemorate the MBX opening, from March 8 to 14, an event will be held in which MBX is paid in an airdrop method to Drops participants in a DeFi Clay Swap.

Meanwhile, Netmarble established a blockchain-only subsidiary and recruited talent in various fields such as service planning, server development, marketing, and management support. For more information, one can check the job posting on the Netmarble website (https://company.netmarble.com/rem/www/noticelist.jsp).

South Korea’s Largest Startup Event COMEUP 2020 Invites Startups for Virtual Pitches

South Korea’s most significant event for startups and small businesses - COMEUP 2020 (www.kcomeup.com) will be held from November 19 to 21, 2020. The event will be livestreamed to tens of thousands of viewers globally. The objective of the COMEUP 2020 event, organized by the Ministry of SMEs and Startups (MSS), is to support startups expand globally. The annual event has started accepting applications from startups for the opportunity to virtually present their pitches. 

Startups are invited to use this opportunity to connect with leading investors, companies and government agencies from South Korea and other countries, as well use this as a platform to grow their business in South Korea, Asia's fourth largest economy and a global leader in ICT, home to tech majors like Samsung, LG, Kakao, and others. 

“International startup conferences are being canceled one by one due to the COVID pandemic, and there is a lack of opportunity for startups to attract international investment and go global through networking. In this context, COMEUP will be a silver lining,” said Lee Soonbai, Director of the Startup Policy Division at MSS.

COMEUP was launched in 2019 to promote the Korean startup ecosystem at home and abroad. The event was developed on lines of similar global events. In 2019, the event had over 21,000 attendees from 60 countries. More than 4,900 startups and 650 VCs attended the event. COMEUP is hosted by the Ministry of SMEs and Startups, the Korea Institute of Startup and Entrepreneurship Development (KISED), and the private startup ecosystem, at the Dongdaemun Design Plaza (DDP) in Seoul.

Online Pitching opportunity for startups from all over the world

This year, the event will hold online pitching sessions for global startups to get an opportunity to showcase their startup to investors and other stakeholders. Promising startups can sign up for the virtual startup pitch from July 24, 2020 to August 23, 2020 (GMT+9). The virtual startup pitch consists of a total of 120 teams in 2 leagues - the Rocket League (84 teams), and the Rookie League (36 teams). The Rookie league will accept applications from startups that are less than 3 years old and have raised less than 410K USD investment. The Rocket league will accept applications from growth-stage startups.

The 120 selected startups will receive support in creating their pitching videos, which will be showcased during the event as well as streamed online. The organizers will facilitate meetings between the startups, investors and media representatives. More than 700 investor firms are expected to attend the event. There will also be an award ceremony based on public votes. 

The theme of COMEUP 2020 is ‘Meet the Future - Post Pandemic, Led by Startups’ 

The three-day event will be held with the theme ’Meet the Future -Post Pandemic, Led by Startups’. COMEUP 2020 will be a hybrid event consisting of 12 sessions based on three focus areas: ‘Social System’, ‘Work’ and ‘Life’. ‘Social system’ will comprise sub-topics of COVID-19, Politics, Digital healthcare, and environment. ‘Work’ will comprise sub-topics of open innovation, Robotics & AI, remote work, and manufacturing. ‘Life’ will comprise sub-topics of commerce, education, entertainment, and offline retail. 

Some of the featured speakers this year are Chris Lee, CEO, SM Entertainment; Emmanuel LaLagarrigue, Chief Innovation Officer, Schneider Electric; Sophie Kim, CEO, Market Kurly; Saeju Jeong, CEO, Noom; and Henry Chesbrough, Professor at UC Berkeley. Investors like Sequoia Capital, Vickers, BAM Ventures, Collaborative Fund, and Grab Ventures are expected to attend as investor mentors. 

HyunWook James Jung, COMEUP Secretary-General, stated, “Our expert-led Organizing Committee consists of functional teams like program planning, operations and PR. We are doing our best to prepare an online global conference so that practical assistance can be provided to the startups participating. Our objective is to help international and Korean startups gain recognition, networking and funding opportunities.”  

More information about COMEUP 2020 can be found on the website https://www.kcomeup.com/, where the conference will be livestreamed. 

Attn Global Startups: S. Korea's K-Startup Grand Challenge 2020 Accepting Applications till June 25th

For global entrepreneurs and startups who want to explore business opportunities in South Korea and expand business in Asia, the Korean government’s ace program K-Startup Grand Challenge is an assured gateway. The program, supported by the Ministry of SMEs and Startups (MSS) and National IT Industry Promotion Agency (NIPA), is now accepting applications for the program till June 25th, 2020.  

The program is an all expenses paid and the first of its kind in Asia with grand prizes for top five teams. The best winning team gets $120,000 and further assistance to develop business in South Korea. 

About K-Startup Grand Challenge

K-Startup Grand Challenge is a startup accelerator program conducted and financed by the Korean government. The program is an initiative to support foreign startups that want to enter the Korean market and further explore the international markets. The program has been promoting Korea as the global leading startup business hub since 2016. 

The selected startup teams get many benefits with the 3-month program from networking opportunities, learning from experts, financial support to business development.  Importantly, the selected startups can look forward to a promising future in Asia, considering the convenient geographical location of the country and its strategically beneficial relationships with other countries in the sub-continent. 

In 2019, the program had received applications from 1,677 teams from 95 countries. Thirty-eight teams from Europe, Asia, and America had been selected for the accelerating program. Out of that 20 teams were selected on final demo day, and they received further follow–up support from January to April 2020.

In 2020, there is scope for 60 talented and innovative startup teams to be part of the enriching program. 

The Selection Process and the 2020 KSGC Program

The application and promotion of the K-Startup Grand Challenge 2020 have started with the last date for submitting applications being June 25th, 2020. An expert panel of judges will be reviewing the applications, and the global selection process will start in early July 2020. 

Sixty selected teams will participate in the accelerating program from September 1st, 2020, to November 30th, 2020. The top 30 will attend the demo day from November 19th to 21, 2020, and get further support for business development from January to April 2021.

Who can apply?

• Startups that are less than 7 years old or pre-entrepreneur whose representative holds a foreign nationality or is an -overseas Korean (foreign compatriot). 


• Promising startups with a clear objective to expand into Asia by using the Korean market as a stepping stone. 


• Startups with interests in Artificial Intelligence, Big-Data, Cloud computing, Networking, IoT, Robotics, Auto Tech, VR/AR/MR, Smart city, Health, Semiconductor, Green, 3D printing, Block chain, Fintech, Information Security, e-commerce, O2O, Logistics, Media, etc. are encouraged to apply.