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The chief executive of South Korea’s biggest online retailer has stepped down, taking responsibility for what is one of the country’s biggest data leaks.
Park Dae-jun resigned on Wednesday after a breach that led to the leak of the personal data of nearly two-thirds of Koreans, sparked a huge public backlash and an exodus of customers. Company officials have said the data breach occurred during a months-long attack that began in June.
The retail group, which is backed by Japan’s SoftBank, said Harold Rogers, the company’s chief administrative officer from its US arm, would replace Park as interim chief executive.
It apologised for the incident. “We deeply feel sorry for causing concerns to the public,” it said, adding that it would strengthen security measures to prevent a recurrence.
Park’s resignation came hours after Prime Minister Kim Min-seok said the government would launch a thorough probe into the case.
Korean police raided Coupang’s headquarters this week to gather evidence related to the incident. The company said the breach exposed personal information of more than 33mn customers including their names, email addresses, phone numbers and shipping addresses.
Park was grilled for hours by Korean lawmakers last week about the perpetrator of the attack and the company’s slow response. He told parliament the perpetrator was a former developer for Coupang who sent an email to the retailer revealing he had the data and threatening to expose them if they did not tighten cyber security. The perpetrator is now believed to be in China.
President Lee Jae Myung last week said it was “truly astonishing” that Coupang had failed to detect unauthorised access to its system for five months. He called for tougher punishment for data breaches.
Coupang is facing potential lawsuits by some victims at home and in the US. Lawmakers are trying to summon Korean-American founder and chair Bom Kim from the US to speak to parliament about the data lapse.
The incident has highlighted the vulnerability of corporate Korea’s cyber defences.
SK Telecom, the country’s largest mobile carrier, was fined $97mn earlier this year for failing to protect its customer data while KT and Lotte Card also reported data breaches. Upbit, the country’s dominant crypto exchange, suffered a hacking attack last month.
Coupang, founded in 2010, has nearly 25mn active members and prides itself on “rocket delivery”. Since news of the data breach first emerged on November 30, shares of the US-listed company have fallen more than 4 per cent.
