Coupang under fire as Korea launches crackdown over $400m data breach affecting millions

South Korea has officially hit e-commerce behemoth Coupang with a record fine of more than $400m in wake of a significant data breach scandal, involving the malicious release of sensitive information belonging to more than 30 million customers last year.

The leak specifically exposed the names, contact and delivery details of some customers of Coupang. Meanwhile, this penalty marks as one of a mega breach that compromised the data of more than 30 million users last year. 

As reported by the BBC, Coupang expressed deep regret over the concern, adding that it will bolster its security safeguards mounting a legal challenge against the PIPC decision.

Most importantly, accounts affected by the recent incident equaled more than two-thirds of South Korea’s population of roughly 50 million people.

Concerning the situation, the commission found a critical deficiency in the access controls and management of authentication signing keys, which ultimately resulted in the personal data of approximately 27.5 million users.

In this regard, Coupang said that its key explanations to mitigate secondary harm were not sufficiently reflected in the commission’s decision.

The company further clarified that later checks showed that approximately 34 million customer accounts were exposed, adding that the breach is presumed to have commenced as early as June of last year through a server based abroad.

In line with the recent situation, Coupang’s boss Dae-jun resigned from his role, taking full responsibility for the incident.

Coupon said: Upon receiving the official resolution from the PIPC, we expect that the facts will be clearly established through legal procedures.”

It is pertinent to mention that South Korea faced a spate of cyber-security incidents last year, despite the country’s reputation for tightening data privacy standards.