Coupang to pay almost $1.2 billion in compensation for data breach

Date:
Tue, 30 Dec 2025 20:20:00 +0000

Description:
Victims will get Coupang vouchers of roughly $35 each.

FULL STORY ======================================================================Coupang breach exposed data of 33.7M customers, one of South Koreas largest cyberattacks Company offers $35 vouchers as compensation, usable only on Coupang services Lawmakers and consumer groups criticize settlement as marketing, police launch investigation

In South Korea, peoples personal information is worth roughly the same as a meal in a sit-down restaurant - around $35. Or at least, that's what the latest data breach settlement suggests.

South Korean e-commerce behemoth Coupang announced it would settle with 33.7 million customers whose data it lost in a recent cyberattack. In November 2025, an unnamed threat actor broke into Coupangs IT infrastructure and exfiltrated peoples names, emails, phone numbers, shipping addresses, and specific order information.

The attack is widely considered as among the biggest ones in the countrys history, triggering law enforcement investigations, and threats of class-action lawsuits. A "ridiculous" idea

Now, Coupang announced a compensation deal worth 1.69 trillion won, or
roughly $1.18 billion. As per the deal, each customer will get a voucher for 50,000 won, which converts to $34.6 at press time. Funny enough, the vouchers can only be spent at Coupang, meaning that after removing any margins, the cost to the company will be even lower.

This angered some lawmakers in the country even more. Reuters reports that Choi Min-hee, a lawmaker of the ruling Democratic Party and chair of the National Assembly's Science, ICT, Broadcasting and Communication committee, said in a Facebook post that Coupang was "bundling coupons for services no
one uses".

She also said the company is trying to turn a crisis into a business opportunity.

Consumer advocacy group Korea National Council of Consumer Organizations said Coupang's plan ridicules the victims and downplays the importance of the breach. It described the settlement as a marketing tool built to fuel more sales, rather than actually compensating the victims.

Less than two weeks after the breach, the police sent 17 investigators to conduct a search and seizure at the companys Songpa-gu offices. As per the local media, this search and seizure is an essential measure to accurately understand the case, and to comprehensively investigate the overall facts of the case, including the leaker of personal information, the route of the
leak, and the cause.

Via Reuters

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Link to news story: https://www.techradar.com/pro/security/coupang-to-pay-almost-usd1-2-billion-in -compensation-for-data-breach


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