Korean e-commerce giant Coupang drops after massive data breach
Leading Korean retailer Coupang is down 9% after details of a breach of personal information from 33.7 million accounts came to light — one of the widest hacks on record for the country of some 52 million people.
“We sincerely apologize once again for causing our customers inconvenience,” CEO Park Dae-jun said in a statement. The company, dubbed the Amazon of South Korea, said on Saturday that the breach was only detected on November 18, but that it started as early as June 24, exposing customers’ names, email addresses, shipping addresses, phone numbers, and certain order details but not payment details or login credentials.
The Ministry of Science and ICT said in a statement on Sunday that it has formed a joint investigation team to analyze the cause of the incident after Coupang reported two breach cases on November 20 and 29. A Chinese national who previously worked at the company reportedly hacked the system, per Yonhap News, though that particular claim is unverified at this point.