Top South Korean e-commerce firm Coupang says 33.7 million customer accounts breached

SEOUL, Nov 30 (Reuters) – South Korean e-commerce giant Coupang said personal information from 33.7 million of its customer accounts was exposed via unauthorized data access. Coupang, dubbed the Amazon.com of South Korea, is the country's top online retailer with its services ubiquitous for many Koreans using its "Rocket" fast deliveries. "Subsequent investigation has revealed that the extent of customer account exposure is about 33.7 million accounts, all in Korea," the company said in a statement on Saturday, adding that it became aware of the data breach on November 18 and reported the case to authorities. Its product commerce active customers reached 24.7 million in the third quarter, the company announced earlier. The case is the latest in a series of data leaks at major South Korean companies such as SK Telecom. A former Chinese employee at Coupang is suspected to be behind the breach but that ex-worker has left the country, Yonhap News Agency reported on Sunday, without citing sources. Coupang sent a complaint to police this month, so police are conducting an investigation, Yonhap said. Coupang was not immediately reachable for comment on the report outside business hours. The exposed data is limited to names, email addresses, phone numbers, shipping addresses, and certain order histories, but does not include payment details or login credentials, the firm said. The unauthorised access to personal information was believed to have started on June 24 through overseas servers, Coupang said. The investigation is still under way and the company continues to work with law enforcement and regulatory authorities, the company added. (Reporting by Ju-min Park in Seoul; Editing by Matthew Lewis and Sonali Paul)

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