As a national telecommunication disaster broke out with the shutdown of the KakaoTalk messenger service, much attention is focused on the in-house messenger programs used by major Korean business groups such as Samsung for internal communications.

Major Korean business groups have been using their own in-house messengers for security and convenience. For instance, Samsung Group is using “Samsung Knox,” SK Group “nate on,” Hyundai Motor Group “Autoway M+” and LG Group “M Messenger.” 

About 270,000 Samsung Group officials, including Samsung Electronics vice chairman Lee Jae-yong, are using Samsung Knox, a proprietary security and management framework pre-installed on most Samsung mobile devices. Its primary purpose is to provide organizations with a tool set for managing work devices, such as employee mobile phones or interactive kiosks. For security reasons, Knox Portal users cannot save conversations or capture the screen. They can also use a secret chat room.

In 2010, SK Group unified its in-house messengers into “nate on” by opening a group portal that integrated its intranets. About 120,000 employees of all SK Group member companies are using nate on. SK’s online communication methods have been integrated into one to make internal communications more efficient. Nate on has been optimized for work through linkage with the in-house organizational chart and e-mail accounts. Convenience as well as security has been enhanced.

About 180,000 Hyundai Motor Group employees are also using their in-house messenger Autoway M+. Hyundai Motor Group also operates “MS Teams,” a business collaboration platform.

LG Group has been using M Messenger since 2018. All data sent and received through M ​​Messenger is encrypted, and all personal information data is also encrypted. In particular, M Messenger has strong security thanks to password encryption, phone DB encryption and secure sockets layer (SSL) application. It is possible to lock an M Messenger account and delete its data when a smartphone is lost. It is equipped with functions such as capture prevention and a PC-controlled remote logout.

POSCO Group uses “PosTalk,” which features both one-to-one and group communications, in-house document sharing and video conferencing. It is compatible with both PCs and mobile phones.

Some Korean business groups are using Microsoft’s Skype Messenger. Hyundai Heavy Industries Group uses Skype for business. It is linked with the company’s in-house mail system (Outlook) so that it is easy to share mail and register schedules. It also considered the fact that it is easy to view company organization charts or search for a specific team or its contact information by using Skype Messenger. Data is not stored in an external cloud, boosting its security a great deal.

Hanwha Group has also been using Skype for business as a common internal messenger since the early 2000s. It manages the server at the Hanwha Group data center.

“Most Korean companies use their own in-house messengers for security and convenience,” an official of the korean business community. “No damage was done to them when KakaoTalk crashed.”