&imwidth=800&imheight=600&format=webp&quality=medium "South Korea hits e-commerce giant with record $400m fine over data leak, nearly 37.5m users affected")
South Korea has slashed a record fine of over $400m (£299m) to online retail giant 'Coupang' over a massive data leak that exposed the data of more than 30 million customers in 2025. The fine has been issued by Seoul's Personal Information Protection Commission (PIPC) for a data breach, marking the largest fine ever by the country's government.
The data breach revealed the names, contact information, delivery addresses and purchase histories of certain customers of Coupang, South Korea's largest e-commerce platform, often compared to Amazon. Responding to the move, Coupang told the BBC that it "deeply regrets the concern caused" and that it would strengthen its security systems, but added that it planned to challenge the Personal Information Protection Commission (PIPC).
The number of affected accounts exceeds half of South Korea's population of nearly 50 million. On Wednesday, the PIPC imposed a fine of 423.6 billion won over the personal data leak, and an additional 201 billion won for collecting user information without consent.
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According to the commission, inadequate security measures, including poor management of authentication signing keys and weak access controls, led to the exposure of personal data belonging to about 37.5 million users. Coupang argued that the commission's ruling did not adequately take into account the company's explanations and the steps it had implemented to prevent further damage from the breach.
"Upon receiving the official resolution from the PIPC, we expect that the facts will be clearly established through legal procedures," said Coupang. The decision follows a months-long probe into Coupang after allegations of the data leak surfaced in November.
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Continuous high-profile cyber-security incidents
The US based company's majority revenue comes from South Korea. The firm stated that it first got aware of a breach affecting around 4500 customer accounts in November and immediately reported it to the officials. However, subsequent investigations revealed that nearly 34 million customer accounts, all based in South Korea, may have been compromised. The company claimed that the data breach likely began as early as June and originated from an overseas server.
After the breach of data, Coupang's boss Park Dae-jun resigned from his role, apologising for the incident. Later, the company's chief administrative officer Harold Rogers was appointed interim CEO. Despite the reputation of country for stringent data privacy standards, South Korean firms continuously faced of high-profile cyber-security incidents last yea. Its largest mobile operator SK Telecom was also fined about $100m over a data breach involving more than 20 million subscribers.
South Korean regulators have now imposed a record fine of more than $400 million on Coupang, citing inadequate security safeguards and the unauthorised collection of user data after the leak exposed the personal information of about 37.5 million customers.
