Coupang needs to resolve cybersecurity to prosper

https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/opinion/20260218/coupang-needs-to-resolve-cybersecurity-to-prosper

Publish Date: 2026-02-17 22:28:00

Coupang’s customer data breach has exposed numerous problems. 33.67 million customer records, including 148 million shipping addresses, were leaked. This represents a data breach affecting 65 percent of the country’s 52 million residents. Given the minors do not have credit cards and can’t join, this really represents almost every household in the country. This grave problem reveals the magnitude of cybersecurity unpreparedness of Coupang. It amounts to negligence in the country where 90 percent of its business takes place.

Coupang has demonstrated inappropriate behavior to the dissatisfaction and anger of its customers. Rather than offering a public apology for poor customer data management and cybersecurity unpreparedness, Coupang blamed an employee, emphasizing his Chinese nationality and attempting to play on anti-China sentiment in Korea and the United States.

The National Assembly summoned Coupang CEO Kim Bom-suk multiple times to hearings, only to receive disrespectful refusals. Instead, a newly appointed CEO who speaks no Korean came to the National Assembly hearings and maintained a “know-nothing” stance. His attitude, misinformation and lack of measures to improve Coupang’s cybersecurity preparedness further angered the nation, causing customers to choose to leave Coupang. It has lost the hearts of Koreans.

Concurrently, a different story floats around in Washington, with groundless assertions such as that there were only 3000 cases of customer data breach and that the Korean government is overreacting and discriminating against an American tech company. Coupang is certainly an e-commerce company, but not a tech company. No clear logic has been offered as to how Coupang is being discriminated against. If a similar customer data breach of this scale happened in the United States, would it be tolerated or dismissed as discrimination? Coupang’s cybersecurity unpreparedness has nothing to do with nationality or origin. Its business activities center…

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