Coupang Makes Billion-Dollar Apology After Record Data Breach

South Korean retailer Coupang is preparing to compensate customers impacted by a massive data breach.

The eCommerce company will begin offering vouchers worth up to 55,000 won ($38) to each of its 33.7 million customers whose personal information was compromised by last month’s cybersecurity incident, the company said in a Monday (Dec. 29) news release.

The release also included an apology from interim CEO Harold Rogers, with the company acknowledging its responsibility for the leak.

“Taking this incident as a turning point, Coupang will wholeheartedly embrace ‘customer-centric principles’ and fulfill its responsibilities to the very end, transforming into a company that customers can trust,” said Rogers. “We once again deeply apologize to our customers.”

The company says the vouchers will include 5,000 won that can be used on all Coupang products, along with 5,000 won for Coupang’s food delivery service, 20,000 won for Coupang travel products, and 20,000 won for the company’s beauty platform R.LUX. In all, the compensation plan is worth 1.685 trillion won, or $1.1 billion.

The data breach, discovered Nov. 18 and said to be the largest ever in South Korea, was limited to customers’ names, email addresses, phone numbers, shipping addresses and some order histories, though not login information or payment details.

In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) earlier this month, Coupang said it had learned that a former employee may have obtained the data and that to the company’s knowledge, that person had not publicly disclosed the information.

The company provided more information on the breach last week, saying that the perpetrator retained data from 3,000 accounts, did not transfer it to others, and deleted the data after media outlets began covering the incident.

Those findings were the result of an ongoing investigation involving Coupang, the South Korean government and three global cybersecurity firms, as well as the perpetrator’s confession. All devices used in the leak have been retrieved, the company added, including a laptop that the perpetrator threw in a river.

Also last week, a group of investors filed a class action suit against Coupang, alleging the company violated securities laws following the breach. The suit claims the eCommerce company misled investors about its data security practices and failed to disclose the breach in a timely manner. The suit also accuses Coupang of understating its vulnerability to cyberattacks and overstated its safeguards in securities filings.

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