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How a simple consumer data breach spiralled into a national security crisis in US-South Korea relations

Washington’s focus on online retailer Coupang has led to accusations that the Trump administration is tying issues of national security to domestic corporate matters

When South Korea’s biggest online retailer revealed last year that a data breach had compromised tens of millions of customer accounts, it appeared to be a corporate crisis. But five months later the issue has grown into a diplomatic storm, threatening to further degrade relations between Seoul and the Trump administration.

Coupang, often described as South Korea’s answer to Amazon, is a US-incorporated company whose business is overwhelmingly based in South Korea. Headquartered in Seattle and listed on the New York Stock Exchange, it is run by Korean-American billionaire Bom Kim. In November last year the company disclosed that a former employee had stolen an internal security key, enabling unauthorised access to data from 33.7 million users.

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© Photograph: Anthony Wallace/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Anthony Wallace/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Anthony Wallace/AFP/Getty Images

South Korean Police Accidentally Post Cryptocurrency Wallet Password

An expensive mistake:

Someone jumped at the opportunity to steal $4.4 million in crypto assets after South Korea’s National Tax Service exposed publicly the mnemonic recovery phrase of a seized cryptocurrency wallet.

The funds were stored in a Ledger cold wallet seized in law enforcement raids at 124 high-value tax evaders that resulted in confiscating digital assets worth 8.1 billion won (currently approximately $5.6 million).

When announcing the success of the operation, the agency released photos of a Ledger device, a popular hardware wallet for crypto storage and management.

However, the images also showed a handwritten note of the wallet recovery phrase, which serves as the master key that allows restoring the assets to another device.

The authorities failed to redact that info, allowing anyone to transfer into their account the assets in the cold wallet.

Reportedly, shortly after the press release was published, 4 million Pre-Retogeum (PRTG) tokens, worth approximately $4.8 million at the time, were transferred out of the confiscated wallet to a new address.

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