- Coupang breach uncovered knowledge of 33.7M clients, one among South Korea’s largest cyberattacks
- Firm provides $35 vouchers as compensation, usable solely on Coupang companies
- Lawmakers and shopper teams criticize settlement as advertising, police launch investigation
In South Korea, individuals’s private info is value roughly the identical as a meal in a sit-down restaurant – round $35. Or at the very least, that is what the newest knowledge breach settlement suggests.
South Korean e-commerce behemoth Coupang introduced it might settle with 33.7 million clients whose knowledge it misplaced in a latest cyberattack. In November 2025, an unnamed risk actor broke into Coupang’s IT infrastructure and exfiltrated individuals’s names, emails, cellphone numbers, transport addresses, and particular order info.
The assault is extensively thought of as among the many largest ones within the nation’s historical past, triggering legislation enforcement investigations, and threats of class-action lawsuits.
A “ridiculous” thought
Now, Coupang introduced a compensation deal value 1.69 trillion gained, or roughly $1.18 billion. As per the deal, every buyer will get a voucher for 50,000 gained, which converts to $34.6 at press time. Humorous sufficient, the vouchers can solely be spent at Coupang, which means that after eradicating any margins, the price to the corporate will probably be even decrease.
This angered some lawmakers within the nation much more. Reuters experiences that Choi Min-hee, a lawmaker of the ruling Democratic Get together and chair of the Nationwide Meeting’s Science, ICT, Broadcasting and Communication committee, mentioned in a Fb put up that Coupang was “bundling coupons for companies nobody makes use of”.
She additionally mentioned the corporate is attempting to show a disaster right into a enterprise alternative.
Shopper advocacy group Korea Nationwide Council of Shopper Organizations mentioned Coupang’s plan ridicules the victims and downplays the significance of the breach. It described the settlement as a “advertising instrument” constructed to gas extra gross sales, quite than truly compensating the victims.
Lower than two weeks after the breach, the police despatched 17 investigators to conduct a search and seizure on the firm’s Songpa-gu workplaces. As per the native media, “this search and seizure is an important measure to precisely perceive the case,” and “to comprehensively examine the general information of the case, together with the leaker of non-public info, the route of the leak, and the trigger.”
By way of Reuters
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