South Korean e-commerce platform Coupang is distributing $1.2 billion in compensation coupons to customers following a data breach.

Coupang, a major South Korean e-commerce platform, announced a massive compensation package for its approximately 33.7 million customers. Each customer received four in-app discount coupons worth 50,000 won, totaling 1.685 trillion won (approximately $1.2 billion) following a major customer data breach. Coupang stated that the compensation was intended to restore customer trust.

 

The incident occurred in June, when the data of 33.7 million customers was leaked, including names, email addresses, contact information, and order details. South Korean police investigated the incident, and Coupang collaborated with an external firm to investigate the cause. This led to the arrest of a former employee as a suspect, based on evidence of stealing security keys to access the compromised data. Authorities also found a computer the suspect attempted to destroy by throwing it into a river, but were able to recover the data.

In the latest update, Coupang revealed that the suspect still possessed data from approximately 3,000 customers, including building access codes. However, there is no evidence that this data was leaked to other channels, nor was there access to credit card information, passwords, or identification cards.