‘Korea’s Amazon’ Coupang discloses a data breach impacting 34M customers

Coupang, South Korea’s leading e‑commerce and logistics platform, disclosed a data breach that exposed the personal information of nearly 34 million South Korean customers. The company said unauthorized access began on 24 June 2025 via overseas servers and that Coupang blocked the access route, strengthened internal monitoring, and retained experts from a leading independent security firm.

It initially detected unauthorized access affecting 4,500 accounts on 18 November, but an investigation later confirmed about 33.7 million customer accounts in South Korea were affected, with exposed data including names, emails, phone numbers, shipping addresses, and some order histories, while payment data, credit card numbers, or login credentials were not compromised.

Coupang notified Korea Internet & Security Agency (KISA) and the National Police Agency, and reported the incident to the Personal Information Protection Commission (PIPC). The breach did not impact data from its Taiwan marketplace or Rocket Now in Japan, and authorities in Seoul announced intensified monitoring for the next three months amid an emergency governmental meeting.

A suspect, identified as a former Chinese Coupang employee who has since left the country, is being investigated following a complaint received on 18 November.