Coupang’s data breach undetected for five months, triggering customer alarm (Yonhap)
SEOUL, Feb. 5 (Korea Bizwire) – E-commerce giant Coupang Corp. said Thursday it has discovered a data leak of personal information from more than 165,000 customer accounts linked to an incident it first identified in November last year.
The latest figure far exceeds the 3,000 accounts Coupang initially reported based on an internal probe, further raising doubt over the company’s credibility and its management of a personal data crisis that has now spilled into politics and diplomacy.
Coupang has come under intense scrutiny over the massive data leak revealed in November that authorities believe has affected more than 33 million customers in South Korea. Authorities are investigating the incident.
Coupang said the leak was found by the government-led investigative team handling the data breach and that it is not a new case but is part of the accounts from the November incident.
The leaked data include names, phone numbers and addresses entered by customers on the address list for shipping, and the company has notified affected customers of the breach in line with recommendations from the state personal information protection watchdog, Coupang said.
In a message to the affected users, Coupang said it has enhanced its monitoring system to better respond to any similar incident in the future and that it has detected no suspected secondary damage from the additional leak.
(Yonhap)
