[dropcap]Two[/dropcap] men suspected of accessing details illegally of 8.7 million users of South Korea’s largest fixed-line phone operator, KT Corp, have been arrested. The company says hackers stole subscribers’ names, phone and personal identification numbers, and then sold the data to telemarketers. The hackers made an estimated 1bn won (£560,518; $877,000) from the sale. An illegally installed computer program had collected subscribers’ information over several months, KT Corp said. “It took nearly seven months to develop the hacking program and [the suspects] had very sophisticated hacking skills,” the company told the Yonhap News agency. KT is also second biggest mobile operator in South Korea. The company apologised to its subscribers, promising to “strengthen the internal security system and raise awareness of security among all employees to prevent causing inconvenience to customers,” Yonhap News quoted...

[dropcap]The[/dropcap] man behind a Twitter account spoofing the chief executive of a newspaper group has been accused of hacking into an email account. Northcliffe Media, owned by the Daily Mail, has taken legal action to make Twitter reveal the man’s identity. In court documents, the company accused “@UnSteveDorkland” of making staff “fear for their safety”. The account holder told the BBC he denied “all accusations of illegal conduct set out in this document”. Twitter has said it will comply with a court order and reveal the user’s details on 1 August. However, the BBC understands, the account holder will be challenging the decision with the help of a pro-bono lawyer, whose services are provided free of charge “for the public good”, in the US. The account holder is also being advised by internet rights groups. If the court order, which has been posted on the Guido Fawkes blog, is quashed, lengthy court pr...

[dropcap]Samsung[/dropcap] and Apple’s patent battle heads to a court in California this Monday - one of the biggest trials of its kind. The tech firms have accused each other of intellectual property infringement. Billions of dollars of payments could be triggered from one business to the other and sales bans imposed if the jury finds one or both parties guilty. Submitted documents and testimony are also likely to throw fresh light on decision making processes and deals made by the two tech firms with others. Together the two companies account for more than half of all the world’s smartphone sales. Despite the fact that Apple buys many of its components from Samsung, the two have failed to agree cross-licencing deals even after the courts forced their bosses to meet for talks. Phone patents The case was prompted by a lawsuit from Apple in April last year. A countersuit by Samsung followed and the two actions were combined...