Coupang (CPNG) traded lower in early action on Monday after the South Korean e-commerce company disclosed a major data breach in which personal information linked to about 33.7 million users was exposed since late June.
South Korean police said they were tracing IP addresses and looking into possible tech vulnerabilities at the e-commerce company after what has been described as the worst data breach in over a decade. The unauthorized access appears to have begun around June 24 and continued undetected until mid-November, when Coupang (CPNG) identified suspicious activity and notified regulators a couple of days later. South Korea’s Science Minister Bae Kyung-hoon said on Sunday the perpetrators abused authentication vulnerabilities in Coupang’s (CPNG) servers and that authorities would be investigating whether the company violated data protection rules.
Weighing in on the development, Coupang (CPNG) said it cannot exclude the possibility that the scale of the leak could end up being larger following further investigation. Analyst Seyon Park said the news comes as an unexpected negative development. “We think uncertainty relating to the scale of the damage could serve as a share price overhang,” warned Park.
Shares of Coupang (CPNG) fell 5.7% in premarket trading on Monday to $26.57 vs. the 52-week range of $19.02 to $34.08.