South Korea’s Coupang Apologises Over the Data Breach

South Korea’s biggest online company, Coupang, apologised for a breach of personal information of 33.7 million customer accounts due to unauthorised data access. 

“We sincerely apologise once again for causing our customers inconvenience,” Park Dae-jun, CEO of the company dubbed the Amazon.com of South Korea, posted on its website. ‘

“The South Korean government held a meeting on Sunday to discuss whether Coupang violated safety rules concerning personal information security”, said Minister of Science and Information & Communication Technology (ICT) Bae Kyung-hoon. Coupang stated that they learned about the data breach on November 18 and immediately reported it to the authorities. It said it was operating with law enforcement and regulatory authorities. 

The company, whose ‘Rocket’ fast-delivery service is used by many Koreans, said it had 24.7 million active commercial users in the third quarter. A news agency reported that a former Chinese employee of Coupang was suspected of being behind the breach. Coupang filed a police complaint against him this month, and the police are investigating. 

The breach of personal data revealed customers’ names, email addresses, phone numbers, shipping addresses, and specific order histories, but not login credentials or payment details, Coupang said. The unauthorised access of personal information was believed to have started on June 24 through overseas servers, it said.

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The Korean government’s Internet & Security agency issued a public advisory warning those affected by the breach about phishing scams.