[THE INVESTOR] A top Korean hacker who has been working at Samsung SDS over the past year is likely to leave for Google, Chosun Ilbo, a local newspaper, reported on Sept. 27.

The 23-year-old Lee Jeong-hoon is considered one of the best white hat hackers, or ethical hackers, in Korea. 




A team led by him won a social engineering contest at the Defcon security conference held in Las Vegas last year. It was the first time that an Asian team has won the world’s biggest hacking competition.

He then joined Samsung SDS, the IT solutions unit of Samsung Group, in October last year, and has been working to find security flaws in Samsung Electronics products such as smartphones, laptops and refrigerators.

“As a hacker, I want to learn and grow more,” he was quoted as saying by the newspaper. “I have concerns about my poor English and the salary is not higher than at Samsung but I think working at Google is an opportunity to grow as a security expert.”

By Lee Ji-yoon (jylee@heraldcorp.com)