Seoul: South Korea has fined Coupang over 10 billion won for the data leak. South Korea's privacy regulator announced on Thursday that it will fine e-commerce giant Coupang 625 billion won (approximately 14.034 billion baht) for a massive customer data breach last year and illegal storage of personal data. This is the largest fine in the country's history for a business data breach.
According to Thai News Agency, the Data Protection Commission revealed that Coupang, a New York Stock Exchange-listed company, experienced a data breach involving the personal information of more than 33 million customers, and the breach was not detected within the 72-hour timeframe required by law.
Song Kyung-hee, head of the privacy regulatory agency, stated to the press that the incident resulted from lax security measures and systems within Coupang itself, and not from any sophisticated hacking attempt.
Following the announcement of the penalties, Coupang issued an apology for causing concern among the public and customers. However, the company further stated that it regretted that its proactive measures to prevent a recurrence of last year's data breach, as well as its fact-finding statements, were not adequately considered in the regulatory authority's decision-making process.