National Intelligence Service called a recent U.S. congressional report on a Coupang personal data leak incident "Coupang's one-sided false claim." It pushed back against the assertion that the National Intelligence Service (NIS) excessively intervened with directives and orders during the probe into Coupang's incident.
The National Intelligence Service (NIS) said in a statement on the 2nd, "Based on Article 4 (Duties) of the National Intelligence Service Act, we recognized the large-scale information leak by foreigners as a national security threat and held working-level consultations with Coupang to collect related information and prevent the spread of damage," and stated accordingly.
On the 1st (local time), the U.S. House Judiciary Committee posted on its website a 35-page report titled "Blocking competition: Korea's discriminatory attacks on American-owned corporations." More than half of the report claimed that the Korean government has been treating American corporations, including Coupang, discriminatorily.
Regarding Coupang's claim in the report that "the NIS issued directives throughout the working-level consultations," the National Intelligence Service (NIS) said, "We held consultations to share necessary information," and asserted, "Some of the materials we received from Coupang were among those Coupang had already submitted to the police."
The National Intelligence Service (NIS) also addressed Coupang's claim that the NIS suggested hiring a particular domestic cybersecurity company, saying, "Coupang first said the response to the analysis by a U.S. company was slow," and "requested an introduction to a domestic company, so we shared information at a general level."
The National Intelligence Service (NIS) said it did not lead the process of retrieving the IT equipment of a suspect in the personal data leak who fled to China. The report stated that the NIS led the retrieval process.
In addition, regarding the process of transporting the IT equipment to Korea, the National Intelligence Service (NIS) said, "Coupang first requested the transport of the equipment to Korea through another government agency," and "judging that the personal information of about 33 million of our citizens could be stored on items such as a laptop the leaker discarded in a stream, we only supported the safe transport of the equipment to Korea so it would not be lost or stolen."
The National Intelligence Service (NIS) added, "We express regret over Coupang's one-sided false claim," and "we will continue to actively cooperate in all activities to uncover the truth."