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Coupang denies allegations that hacker tried to blackmail company with list of adult product customers

Published: 13 Feb. 2026, 16:55

CHO YONG-JUN
[email protected]

The Coupang headquarters is seen in southern Seoul on Dec. 9, 2025. [NEWS1]

Coupang denied allegations that the data breach hacker attempted to blackmail the e-commerce giant using a curated list of customers who purchased adult products.

Democratic Party lawmaker Kim Seung-won told Prime Minister Kim Min-seok during an interpellation session at the National Assembly on Thursday that the Coupang data breach suspect had created a list containing information of 3,000 users who purchased adult products from the e-commerce platform, alleging that the suspect threatened Coupang to make the list public if they were not paid.

“The claim that the attacker separately categorized 3,000 people who have purchased adult products in order to demand money [from Coupang] is not true,” Coupang said in a statement Thursday.

The suspect, however, did send Coupang emails containing personal information of customers, including “sensitive product information that can violate personal privacy,” according to the Coupang joint investigation findings released on Tuesday.

“Neither the findings from the recent joint investigation nor the email sent by the attacker contain any mention of blackmailing for financial gains,” Coupang said.

Coupang reported in November that the personal information of more than 33.7 million users, including their names, addresses, phone numbers and recent purchase history, was compromised.

The attacker was identified by the investigators as a former software developer at Coupang, who was responsible for designing and developing the platform’s backup user authentication system. The suspect is alleged to have used a stolen signing key to give him unamortized access to Coupang’s internal data.

“Coupang promises to take all necessary measures to prevent recurrence of such events and will try our utmost to protect the valuable personal data of our customers,” Coupang said.

BY CHO YONG-JUN [[email protected]]