Chinese E-Commerce Sites Selling Coupang Accounts for 40,000 KRW... Coupang Denies Link to Hacking Incident

Cases of Coupang Account Sales Raised at Science and ICT Committee Inquiry
Park Daejun: "Not Used in This Hacking Incident"

Park Daejun, CEO of Coupang, is attending the current issue inquiry at the plenary meeting of the National Assembly's Science, Technology, Information and Broadcasting and Communications Committee on the 2nd. Photo by Kim Hyunmin

Regarding the controversy over Coupang accounts being sold on Chinese e-commerce sites such as Taobao, Park Daejun, CEO of Coupang, dismissed the allegations, stating, "This recent network breach did not involve the use of account or login information."

During the current issue inquiry at the National Assembly's Science, Technology, Information and Broadcasting and Communications Committee on the 2nd, Assemblyman Kim Jangkyum of the People Power Party raised concerns by presenting cases where Coupang accounts were being sold for 23 yuan (approximately 4,700 won) and 183 yuan (approximately 38,000 won), and questioned, "If accounts that can be logged into are being traded, doesn't that mean login information has been leaked?"

In response, CEO Park explained, "If it were method A, it would involve accessing the service as if one were a Coupang user," and clarified, "In this hacking incident, company accounts or system login information were not used."

Brett Mathis, Coupang's Global Head of Security, stated, "We are not aware of the specific details of these cases," but added, "On the dark web, there are various methods for stealing e-commerce accounts or selling forged accounts. Sometimes, accounts are accessed using client cookie information."

However, there was also an opinion that the scenario in question could be possible. Kim Seungjoo, a professor at Korea University, commented, "Although Coupang claims that IDs and authentication tokens were not leaked or traded, if internal management is lax and IDs and passwords are leaked, such a scenario is possible."

Assemblyman Kim Jangkyum then asked again, "(CEO Park) said there has been no secondary damage, but according to Professor Kim, isn't there a risk of secondary damage?" CEO Park replied, "I am not denying the possibility," but added, "If login accounts were stolen, I question why there would be a need to sell Coupang accounts for money."