- Coupang confirms massive breach exposing PII of 34M customers, undetected for nearly six months
- Police raided its Songpa-gu offices, seizing evidence after reports a former employee’s account was misused
- Over 10,000 victims are pursuing a class-action lawsuit, seeking compensation
The police have raided the offices of South Korea’s biggest ecommerce store, Coupang, as it investigates one of the largest data breaches in the country’s recent history.
In the final days of November, Coupang confirmed suffering a cyberattack and losing personally identifiable information (PII) of 34 million customers. As per the company’s CEO, the attack started in June 2025, and it wasn’t spotted for almost half a year.
During that time, the attacker exfiltrated people’s names, emails, phone numbers, shipping addresses, and specific order information, putting them at serious risk of identity theft and fraud.
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More than a dozen investigators
Initial reports state that the data theft was carried out by a former employee at Coupang, also a Chinese national. Allegedly, the employee’s account wasn’t terminated even after they left the company, and this access was later used for data exfiltration.
Now, the police are involved, sending 17 investigators to conduct a search and seizure at the company’s Songpa-gu offices. As per the local media, “this search and seizure is an essential measure to accurately understand the case,” and “to comprehensively investigate the overall facts of the case, including the leaker of personal information, the route of the leak, and the cause.”
Local media is also saying that some evidence was confiscated including internal documents and server logs.
“Coupang will do its best to prevent further damage in close cooperation with the Ministry of Science and ICT, the Personal Information Protection Commission, the Korea Internet & Security Agency, the National Police Agency, and other public-private joint investigation teams,” Coupang CEO Park Dae-joon said in a letter published after the breach.
Coupang is the biggest ecommerce store in the country, often nicknamed “Amazon of South Korea”. Alongside this investigation, Reuters reports that more than 10,000 people have already expressed interest in joining a class-action lawsuit against the retailer, which could see them paid $68 per person for their loss.
Via Cybernews
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