South Korea Regulators Pin Coupang Data Breach on Internal Security Failures
South Korean authorities have attributed Coupang's massive data breach to systemic authentication vulnerabilities, marking one of the country's worst privacy incidents. The e-commerce giant's security lapses allowed unauthorized access to 33.7 million customer records through compromised employee credentials.
The breach has escalated trade tensions with Washington, where officials are scrutinizing the protection of US tech firms operating in Korea. Both local police and the Data Protection Commission continue parallel investigations into the January 2025 incident.
Ministry of Science and ICT investigators found attackers exploited authentication protocol weaknesses before the breach became public. "Attackers bypassed login requirements entirely by forging security tokens," stated the ministry's report, highlighting critical failures in Coupang's identity verification systems.
