South Korean e-commerce giant Coupang has confirmed a massive data breach exposing the personal information of 33.7 million customers. The incident, which began in June 2025, is one of the largest in the nation's history and is linked to a former employee's active credentials.
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South Korean e-commerce giant Coupang has confirmed a massive data breach exposing the personal information of 33.7 million customers. The incident, which began in June 2025, is one of the largest in the nation's history and is linked to a former employee's active credentials.
Cyber News Centre's cyber update for 2nd December 2025: Coupang has confirmed a significant data breach affecting over 33 million of its customers.
Coupang is South Korea's largest online retailer, often described as the nation's equivalent of Amazon.com. The company, founded in 2010 and backed by SoftBank Group, offers a wide range of services including its popular "Rocket Delivery" and is expanding into food delivery, streaming, and fintech.
Update: South Korean e-commerce giant Coupang has confirmed a data breach that exposed the personal information of 33.7 million customers, making it one of the largest in the country's history. The breach, which began on June 24, 2025, was not detected until November 18. Exposed data includes customer names, email addresses, phone numbers, and shipping addresses, though the company states that financial details and login credentials were not compromised. An investigation by South Korean police points to a former employee, a Chinese national who has since left the country, as a key suspect. It is believed the individual used an authentication key that remained active after their employment was terminated, allowing prolonged access to the company's servers. Coupang CEO Park Dae-jun issued a public apology, stating,
"We sincerely apologise once again for causing our customers inconvenience."
The company is cooperating with authorities and has retained an independent security firm.
Why it Matters: This incident highlights a critical failure in internal security controls, specifically the lack of a robust offboarding process for employees with privileged access. The fact that a former employee's credentials remained active for months demonstrates a significant gap in identity and access management. For a company of Coupang's scale, which handles the data of over half of South Korea's population, this oversight is a major concern. The breach serves as a stark reminder that even sophisticated e-commerce platforms can be compromised by basic security hygiene failures, and that the insider threat, whether malicious or negligent, remains a potent risk.
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