About Us

Vision: To make a safe and secure world by enhancing the general public's understanding of cybersecurity.

Mission: We produce in-depth but readable news on cybersecurity for a global audience. With expertise on the deep, dark web, fueled by S2W researchers, we conduct specialized reporting on security.

Priority: Accuracy (original data + investigative reporting) + Agility (bravery). We focus on quality, not quantity. We go right to the core.

Three Axes: Quality + Data + Visualization

From the Editor

May 18, 2022 6:00PM KST

Hello! I’m Dain Oh, The Readable’s founding editor-in-chief. When S2W first gave me the opportunity to establish a cybersecurity newspaper for a global audience, I was not completely sure what they wanted from me or what I needed to do to make the news site successful.

A number of things are still in progress, but here I am at S2W with my own team. It took me about 10 months to launch this news site, The Readable, since first being offered the job. During that time, I had opportunities to meet media gurus, conduct research regarding various journalism theses, and read several books related to this field.

Our name, The Readable, came to my mind last March. As a journalist who published in-depth reports on the cybersecurity industry for more than five years, I always felt the need to make cybersecurity news more readable. The importance of cybersecurity kept growing around the world, and I wanted to write cybersecurity stories that the general public can understand, including my parents.

There are very few media outlets that are similar to ours. The Readable is fully funded by S2W, while having independent editorship. No one at S2W, except the journalists who write for it, are able to dictate what The Readable should investigate or write about. S2W funds The Readable focused on a single mission, which is to help create a safer and more secure world. S2W and The Readable know that a safe and secure world will not be possible without enhancing the general public’s understanding of cybersecurity.

The Readable covers a wide range of issues from South Korean cybersecurity news to the deep, dark web where cybercriminals communicate. We will also closely look into the e-commerce industry, where fraud is expanding exponentially through digital exploitation.

We know the importance of context and original reporting. Every article we produce goes through our fact-checking and evaluation processes. In addition, we invest a great amount of time and energy on data and visualization because we know that the time you spend reading our stories is valuable. To accomplish this, we will receive data from S2W from time to time. However, this is not done to advertise for S2W but to deliver data-based, accurate stories. Whenever we advertise anything or try to make a profit from the news site, you will know because we will state it clearly.

The Readable pursues quality journalism, and we will work hard to share this experience with you. We are dedicated, professional journalists, combined with top-class analysts and programmers in the field of cybersecurity. If you have any questions about us, we would love to talk with you and answer them. Feel free to contact us through any channels that you find here. Thank you for your interest.

Dain Oh
Founding Editor-in-Chief

Reporters

Dain Oh is a distinguished journalist based in South Korea, recognized for her exceptional contributions to the field. As the founder and editor-in-chief of The Readable, she has demonstrated her expertise in leading media outlets to success. Prior to establishing The Readable, Dain was a journalist for The Electronic Times, a prestigious IT newspaper in Korea. During her tenure, she extensively covered the cybersecurity industry, delivering groundbreaking reports. Her work included exclusive stories, such as the revelation of incident response information sharing by the National Intelligence Service. These accomplishments led to her receiving the Journalist of the Year Award in 2021 by the Korea Institute of Information Security and Cryptology, a well-deserved accolade bestowed upon her through a unanimous decision. Dain has been invited to speak at several global conferences, including the APEC Women in STEM Principles and Actions, which was funded by the U.S. State Department. Additionally, she is an active member of the Asian American Journalists Association, further exhibiting her commitment to journalism.

Kuksung Nam is a journalist for The Readable. She has extensively traversed the globe to cover the latest stories on the cyber threat landscape and has been producing in-depth stories on security and privacy by engaging with industry giants, foreign government officials and experts. Before joining The Readable, Kuksung reported on politics for one of South Korea’s top-five local newspapers, The Kyeongin Ilbo. Her journalistic skills and reportage earned her the coveted Journalists Association of Korea award in 2021 for her essay detailing exclusive stories about the misconduct of a former government official. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in French from Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, a testament to her linguistic capabilities.

Researchers

Sojun Ryu is a cybersecurity researcher for The Readable. He graduated from the “Best of the Best” next-generation security expert training program (BoB) at the Korea Information Technology Research Institute (KITRI) in 2013, and holds a master’s degree in information security from Sungkyunkwan University in Korea. He worked at KrCERT/CC for seven years, analyzing malware and responding to incidents. He is also one of the authors of "Operation Bookcodes," published by KrCERT/CC in 2020. Recently, Ryu has been focusing on threat intelligence, cybercrime, and advanced persistent threats (APT) by expanding into the deep, dark web with TALON, the Cyber Threat Intelligence group at S2W.

Dasom Kim is a cybersecurity researcher for The Readable. Her research into the dark web was recognized at the 2018 Digital Crime Consortium, hosted by Microsoft’s Digital Crimes Unit (DCU), where she delivered a presentation titled "The Most Connected Darkness: Cases from the Korean Cyber Underground.” She specializes in user profiling, brand abuse analysis, and takedown processes of the deep and dark web. As a senior researcher at TALON, the Cyber Threat Intelligence Group at S2W, she is currently performing correlation analysis among forum users on the deep and dark web while also taking part in responses to data leaks and brand abuse. Kim is primarily interested in analyzing threat actors who are related to stealer, ransomware, and data breach incidents. She has been invited to speak at international conferences, such as HITCON, ROOTCON, and AVTOKYO.

Team

CEO: Sangduk Suh

Editor-in-Chief: Dain Oh

Reporter: Kuksung Nam

Researchers: Sojun Ryu, Dasom Kim

Project Managers: Sangbae Han, Sujin Yeon

Programmers: Yeonkeun Kim, Myoungin Yu

Designers: Sangseon Kim, Areum Hwang

English Language Consultant: Nate Galletta

Advisory Board

Beomsoo Kim from Yonsei University
Jungduk Kim from People-Centric Security Forum
Yongtae Shin from Soongsil University
Keunjin Kim from Spiceware
Changhun Yoo from swIDch
Ducksang Yoon from CIOT
Kangman Lee from FASOO
Kyungeun Lee from Asian American Journalists Association

Official Channels

LinkedIn: @company/the-readable

Twitter: @thereadable

Email: hello@thereadable.co

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