'What's Going On?' Second Data Breach This Year... Addresses and Phone Numbers Leaked, Only Notified by Email Without Public Notice

Tiffany Hit by Data Breach After Dior
Personal Information Leaked on April 8
Incident Discovered Nine Days Later
"Only Some Customers Notified by Email... No Official Announcement"

It has been confirmed that the luxury jewelry brand Tiffany & Co. experienced a data breach involving the personal information of domestic consumers. The leaked information reportedly includes names, addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, internal customer numbers, and sales data.

According to industry sources on May 26, Tiffany Korea recently sent emails to some customers notifying them of a cybersecurity incident. According to the email, the personal information leak occurred on April 8, and Tiffany only became aware of the incident nine days later, on April 17.

However, Tiffany Korea did not issue any separate announcements about this breach on its website or social media channels. In response to customer service inquiries, a Tiffany Korea representative explained, "It appears that only customers whose personal information was leaked were notified," and added, "The information leak occurred in the system of the U.S. headquarters, not Tiffany Korea."

[Image source=Reuters Yonhap News]

This is not the first time that LVMH, the world's largest luxury group, has suffered a hacking incident. On May 13, Dior, a luxury brand under LVMH, also sent emails to customers, stating, "On May 7, we discovered that an unauthorized third party had accessed some customer data held by our company," thereby disclosing the hacking incident.

At that time, Dior stated that customer names, mobile phone numbers, email addresses, and postal addresses had been leaked. However, they clarified that financial information, including bank and credit card details, was not included.

There are growing concerns in some quarters about the vulnerability of LVMH's security management. This is because there have been two personal information breaches just this month, and in both cases, the incidents were recognized belatedly.

Meanwhile, Tiffany Korea's sales last year reached 377.9 billion won, an increase of 7.6 percent compared to the same period the previous year. Operating profit last year amounted to 21.5 billion won. Previously, LVMH acquired Tiffany in 2021 for 15.8 billion dollars (approximately 21.6 trillion won).