Police ended a search and seizure of Coupang, which caused a breach of personal information affecting 33.7 million customers, after 10 hours. The warrant named a former employee of Chinese nationality, who had worked as a developer on Coupang's authentication system before resigning, as a suspect.
On Jan. 9, the Cyber Investigation Division of the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency searched and seized Coupang's headquarters office in Songpa-gu, Seoul, for about 10 hours from 11 a.m. to around 9:15 p.m. Seventeen investigators, including the head of the Cyber Investigation Division who leads the task force dedicated to the Coupang personal information leak case, were deployed to the site. They were said to have secured digital evidence to identify the person who leaked the personal information, as well as the leak route and cause.
The search and seizure warrant identified a former Coupang employee of Chinese nationality as a suspect on charges of "intrusion into an information and communications network and disclosure of secrets," under the Act on Promotion of Information and Communications Network Utilization and Information Protection. Police believe this large-scale personal information leak resulted not from external hacking but from internal actions by the former employee.
The employee was reportedly in charge of developing the authentication system while at Coupang. Park Dae-jun, Coupang's CEO, also said at a question session of the National Assembly's Science. ICT. Broadcasting. and Communications Committee on Jan. 2 that "a former developer of Chinese nationality appears to have used internal access privileges."
Based on the materials secured this time, police plan to determine the leak route for the personal information, the time of access, and the internal management system. However, because the scope of the investigation is extensive, the search and seizure is expected to continue tomorrow (Jan. 10).