South Korean regulators announced on February 10 that Coupang must remediate security vulnerabilities that enabled a former employee to access the personal data of roughly 34 million customers for seven months.
The breach, which began in April 2025 and ended in November 2025, was discovered when the company noticed anomalous activity in its authentication system. Investigators traced the intrusion to a former engineer who forged authentication tokens by exploiting a signing key, allowing him to bypass login controls and read customer records that included names, email addresses, phone numbers, addresses, building access codes and order histories. Payment data and login credentials were not compromised.
The Ministry of Science and ICT has issued a directive requiring Coupang to submit a remediation plan and to implement technical fixes within a specified timeframe. The investigation also uncovered allegations that Coupang staff deleted logs and failed to preserve evidence, actions that could lead to regulatory fines under South Korea’s Personal Information Protection Act.
In response, former CEO Park Dae‑jun resigned and interim CEO Harold Rogers took the helm. Rogers issued a statement apologizing for the breach and announced a compensation package of 1.69 trillion won (about $1.17 billion) in platform‑only vouchers to be distributed to affected users. The company also pledged to strengthen its security architecture and to cooperate fully with regulators.
The incident poses a significant reputational risk for Coupang, a company that has grown to become South Korea’s largest e‑commerce platform. While the breach did not affect payment data, the exposure of personal information could erode customer trust and trigger a decline in repeat purchases. Regulators are also scrutinizing the company’s compliance culture, and potential fines could add to its operating costs.
Investors have expressed concern over the regulatory findings and the alleged obstruction of the investigation, while some analysts remain cautiously optimistic about Coupang’s underlying business momentum, citing a 17.81% revenue growth in the most recent quarter. The company’s management has emphasized that it is taking decisive steps to restore security and customer confidence.
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