Appeared at National Assembly Hearing on Coupang Security Breach on December 31
Coupang Left Five Months of Log Data Deleted
At the National Assembly hearing held for the second consecutive day under the title "Hearing on Coupang Security Breach, Personal Information Leak, Unfair Trade Practices, Labor Conditions, and Measures to Prevent Recurrence," Vice Prime Minister Baek made these remarks.
He addressed Coupang's claim that it conducted a "self-investigation" under the direction of the National Intelligence Service by saying, "I hope we can focus on the essence of the issue," and emphasized, "Coupang's top priority should be to cooperate with the joint public-private investigation team, the police, and the Personal Information Protection Commission."
He continued, "I have been informed that there was cooperation with the National Intelligence Service during the process of transferring seized items from China to Korea, but that is not the important issue." He stressed that what matters is to disclose whether the contents of the seized items match the findings of the government's investigation.
He went on to say, "After the Coupang personal information leak, the Ministry of Science and ICT requested data preservation on November 19, but on November 27, we confirmed that five months' worth of website access logs had been left to be deleted," pointing out that this constitutes a legal violation.
Vice Prime Minister Baek added that although the ministry had made over 160 data requests to Coupang, only about 50 had been submitted. "There is a lack of cooperation in providing critical raw data, the results of investigations by U.S. security firms, internal penetration testing data, and three years' worth of red team operation records," he said.
He further stated, "Coupang claims that only 3,000 cases were leaked and have been deleted, but that is an extremely dangerous statement. Coupang is quoting the suspect's statements verbatim, and the results of investigations commissioned by three agencies almost entirely match the suspect's account. This is a situation that inevitably raises serious suspicions."
He expressed concern, saying, "They say 3,000 cases were deleted, but they might still be stored somewhere. If they were saved to the cloud, it would be difficult to find them. This could be exploited in state-sponsored cyberattacks, so it is a very serious issue that must be considered carefully."
He concluded, "Coupang should have announced fact-based findings and investigation results, and clarified compensation measures. Even now, I urge Coupang to fully fulfill its responsibilities as a subject of investigation. If any issues are uncovered during the investigation, we will take stern action."
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