South Korean police raid e-commerce giant Coupang’s headquarters over a data leak affecting 33.7 million customers, as the firm faces a class action lawsuit.
SEOUL: South Korean police raided the Seoul headquarters of e-commerce giant Coupang on Tuesday over a massive data leak.
The company had previously told authorities that the personal information of 33.7 million customers was exposed, affecting almost two-thirds of the country’s population.
Seventeen officers from the cyber investigation unit conducted a search and seizure operation at the firm’s headquarters.
Police described the raid as a necessary measure in their investigation into the leak.
The leaked data included customer names, email addresses, phone numbers, shipping addresses and some order histories.
Coupang stated that payment details and login credentials were not affected.
According to authorities, the leak took place through Coupang’s overseas servers from June 24 to November 8.
The company only became aware of the breach last month.
Police and local media reported that Coupang filed a complaint against a former employee, a Chinese national, as the alleged culprit.
The suspect has not yet been apprehended.
President Lee Jae Myung last week called for swift action to penalise those responsible for the data debacle.
The presidential office said Monday that Coupang must present clear measures for compensating affected users.
Coupang is now facing a class action lawsuit in the United States, where its global headquarters is based.
The case follows a major breach at South Korea’s largest mobile carrier, SK Telecom, which was fined 134 billion won in August.
South Korea, among the world’s most wired countries, has frequently been a target of hacking by North Korea.
Police last year said North Korean hackers were behind the theft of sensitive data from a South Korean court computer network.
