Seoul: E-commerce giant Coupang Corp. announced a significant data leak involving personal information from more than 165,000 customer accounts, linked to an incident initially identified in November last year.

According to Yonhap News Agency, the latest revelations reveal a much larger breach than Coupang's initial report, which cited around 3,000 affected accounts. This discrepancy has raised concerns about the company's credibility and its handling of the data crisis, which has escalated into a political and diplomatic issue.

Coupang is under intense scrutiny following the massive data leak disclosed in November, which authorities believe has impacted more than 33 million customers in South Korea. The investigation into the incident is ongoing.

The company clarified that the leak was discovered by a government-led investigative team and is not a separate incident but part of the previously identified November breach. The compromised data includes names, phone numbers, and addresses used for shipping, and Coupang has notified affected customers as recommended by the state personal information protection watchdog.

In communication with affected users, Coupang stated it has upgraded its monitoring system to prevent similar incidents in the future and confirmed that no secondary damage has been detected from the additional leak.