Police launched a compulsory investigation into Coupang (CPNG), Korea's largest e-commerce platform, on Wednesday following a data breach that compromised personal information of 33.7 million members.
The Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency's Cyber Investigation Division said it deployed 17 investigators, including the division chief, to Coupang's headquarters in Songpa-gu on Wednesday morning to secure materials related to the data leak.
"This search and seizure is an essential measure to accurately understand the case," a police official said. "Based on the digital evidence obtained, we plan to comprehensively investigate the overall facts of the case, including who leaked the personal information, the leak channels and causes."
Police began their investigation after receiving a report from Coupang on November 18 confirming the data breach. While Coupang initially reported approximately 4,500 victims in the early stages of the case, the number of compromised accounts has since grown to 33.7 million.
Police are also monitoring in real time for secondary damages, including cases where the leaked personal information from Coupang is being directly exploited and crimes using the Coupang data breach as material. To this end, investigators have voluntarily received server log records from Coupang and are tracing IP addresses used in the breach.
