(2nd LD) Science minister reaffirms Coupang data leak affected 33 mln customers

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SEOUL, Dec. 30 (Yonhap) — Science Minister Bae Kyung-hoon on Tuesday reaffirmed that a recent data leak at Coupang Inc. affected 33 million customers in South Korea, noting the U.S.-listed e-commerce giant had “malicious intent” in its unilateral release of its own assessment report that claimed significantly less damage last week.

“The joint government–private sector investigation, including the Personal Information Protection Commission and the police, revealed that the names and email addresses of more than 33 million users were leaked,” Bae said during a parliamentary session.

The remarks came after Coupang claimed last week it had identified a former employee responsible for the data leak through forensic evidence, recovered the equipment used in the hacking and received a confession from the suspect.

The company claimed that data from only about 3,000 accounts was actually saved and later deleted by the suspect.

The government, however, has dismissed Coupang’s findings as a “unilateral claim,” noting that a joint public-private investigation into the incident has yet to release any conclusions.

“We cannot agree with that claim,” Bae said.

The minister said details such as users’ addresses and order information were also believed to have been leaked.

“We express grave concern toward Coupang, which issued an announcement that had not been coordinated with the government,” he said. “I believe Coupang had an extremely malicious intent.”

Bae pointed out that the suspect accessed Coupang’s servers and freely viewed and downloaded users’ information.

The minister added the laptop submitted by Coupang, owned by a former employee suspected to be behind the leak, does not prove that only 3,000 accounts were compromised.

“The suspect could have uploaded the information to a cloud server rather than saving it on a laptop or desktop computer, and we need to conduct such analysis,” he said.

On Monday, the company announced a compensation plan worth 1.685 trillion won (US$1.17 billion) after Coupang founder Kim Bom-suk issued his first public apology since the incident.

However, the plan to pay 50,000 won per affected user drew criticism from consumer rights groups, which described it as little more than a marketing strategy aimed at encouraging additional purchases and renewed memberships.

At the same parliamentary hearing, Harold Rogers, interim chief executive officer (CEO) of Coupang Corp., the South Korean unit of Coupang, came under fire from lawmakers for what they described as unsatisfactory responses.

Asked whether Coupang would offer additional compensation to affected consumers, Rogers said the company’s compensation plan was voluntary and unprecedented, suggesting it as being sufficient.

Addressing criticism over the absence of Coupang’s founder at the hearing, Rogers said: “Our entire board of directors, including our chairman, is aware of this issue, is concerned about it and takes it very seriously. However, I am the executive in charge of Coupang Korea and will be managing the company through this incident.”

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