Coupang increased its investment in information security by more than 50% last year compared to the previous year.

According to the information security status report disclosed by Coupang to the Korea Internet & Security Agency (KISA) today (June 30), the company's information security investment last year totaled 134.93 billion won, a 51.6% increase from 88.98 billion won in 2024.

Coupang's information security investment grew gradually from 63.9 billion won in 2022 to 65.9 billion won in 2023, before beginning to rise significantly starting in 2024.

Information security investment includes system maintenance, external service fees, labor costs, and training expenses.

Coupang expanded its investment in areas such as increasing information security personnel (28.72 billion won) and rising costs for outsourced system development, maintenance, and repairs (29.38 billion won).

The number of dedicated information security personnel increased by approximately 75%, from 211.6 to 370.1.

This growth rate is 10 times higher than the 7.4% increase in the total number of employees at Coupang Corp.

Specifically, internal staff dedicated to information security grew from 162.7 to 204.8, while outsourced personnel for security enhancement increased from 48.9 to 165.3.

Coupang's total investment in the information technology (IT) sector reached 2.57 trillion won, a 34.2% increase from the previous year. Consequently, the ratio of information security investment to total IT investment rose to 5.2%, up 0.6 percentage points from 4.6% the previous year.

Since information security disclosure became mandatory in 2022, Coupang has ranked first in the retail industry for information security investment for four consecutive years, including last year's disclosure, and is expected to have the largest scale in this year's disclosure as well.

In comparison, e-commerce competitor Naver's information security investment and dedicated personnel stand at 66.03 billion won and 154 people, respectively, which is about half the level of Coupang.

Information security investments and dedicated personnel for other major retail companies are as follows: E-mart (8 billion won, 18.9 people), Hyundai Department Store (3 billion won, 13.9 people), Hyundai Home Shopping (2.8 billion won, 11.9 people), and Shinsegae (3.38 billion won, 10.8 people).

Lotte Shopping and Gmarket have not yet disclosed their investment figures for last year.

This disclosure is based on the previous fiscal year and reflects investment details prior to the personal data breach incident that occurred at the end of last year.

(Photo: Yonhap News)