Note by PHRACK STAFF:
A responsible disclose was attempted with South Korea. The full article, dump and release schedule was shared with them before publishing:
• 16th of June 2025, Informed Defense Counterintelligence Command.
• 26th of June 2025, Anonymous response by clearbear001 (dcc.mil.kr?).
• 16th of July 2025, Anonymous response by operation-dl (who is this?).
• 17th of July 2025, Informed KISA.
• 17th of July 2025, Informed Ministry of Unification.
• 17th of July 2025, Informed LG Uplus Corp.
• 18th of July 2025, Informed KrCERT.
• 15th of August 2025, Proton disables whistleblower's email account.
• 16th of August 2025, Proton disables author's email account.
The only responses were from anonymous individuals (clearbear001 and operation-dl).
We advised them to inform KISA and KrCERT. Communication then ended abruptly.
An appeal was filed with Proton. Proton replied: "your account will cause further damage to our service, therefore we will keep the account suspended".
Proton ignored any further request for clarification (Proton was used only for email and only to communicate with South Korea).
Proton's legal department was contacted (8 times), but they never responded.
Emails from Proton Mail users to non-Proton Mail users
• End-to-end encrypted if the Password-protected Emails feature is selected.
• Otherwise encrypted with TLS if the non-Proton Mail mail server supports it (most providers such as Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc, support TLS). Note, since these messages are encrypted but not end-to-end encrypted, Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc will be able to read these messages and hand them over.
This is not possible if you use Password-protected Emails, which enable Proton Mail's end-to-end