- Coupang breach exposed data of 33.7 million customers, one of South Korea’s largest cyber attacks
- The company offers $35 vouchers as compensation, which can only be used on Coupang services
- Lawmakers and consumer groups criticize settlement as marketing, police launch investigation
In South Korea, people’s personal information is worth about the same as a meal at a sit-down restaurant – about $35. Or at least that’s what the latest data breach settlement suggests.
South Korean e-commerce giant Coupang announced it would make amends with 33.7 million customers whose data it lost in a recent cyber attack. In November 2025, an unnamed threat actor broke into Coupang’s IT infrastructure and exfiltrated people’s names, emails, phone numbers, shipping addresses and specific order information.
The attack is widely considered to be among the largest in the nation’s history, and it sparked law enforcement investigations and threats of class-action lawsuits.
A “ridiculous” idea
Now, Coupang announced a compensation deal worth 1.69 trillion won, or about $1.18 billion. Under the deal, each customer will receive a 50,000 won voucher, which converts to $34.6 at press time. Funnily enough, the coupons can only be used on Coupang, which means that after removing any margins, the cost to the business will be even lower.
This angered some lawmakers in the country even more. Pakinomist reports that Choi Min-hee, a lawmaker from the ruling Democratic Party and chairman of the National Assembly’s Science, ICT, Broadcasting and Communications Committee, said in a Facebook post that Coupang “bundles 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 spur more sales rather than actually compensating victims.
Less than two weeks after the breach, police sent 17 investigators to search and seize the company’s Songpa-gu offices. According to the local media, “this search and seizure is an essential measure to accurately understand the case” and “to investigate the overall facts of the case, including the leakage of personal information, the path of the leak and the cause.”
Via Pakinomist
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