Overnight Coupang outage causes widespread disruptions, sparks fresh hacking fears
Summary
Coupang and its affiliated services experienced widespread access disruptions in South Korea early Friday, temporarily blocking shopping, food delivery and video streaming. The outage began around 1 a.m. and appeared to ease roughly two hours later. Users reported login, search, account-information and order-tracking problems, prompting fears of another cyberattack after Coupang’s previous data breach. The cause remained unclear, although some customers were told an internal system error was responsible.
Key Facts
- The disruption affected Coupang’s website and mobile app, Coupang Eats and Coupang Play.
- Some users encountered an error message saying the network connection was not working and advising them to try again.
- Coupang recently filed lawsuits challenging South Korean government fines totaling approximately 620 billion won ($462 million) related to its previous data breach.
- The previous breach exposed customers’ personal information and led to scrutiny of Coupang’s security practices.
A Coupang delivery truck is parked in front of a Coupang logistics center in downtown Seoul, Dec. 30, 2025. Korea Times photo by Lim Ji-hoon
Coupang and its affiliated services suffered widespread access disruptions early Friday, temporarily preventing users from shopping, ordering food or streaming videos and raising fresh cybersecurity concerns following the e-commerce giant's previous data breach.
The disruptions reportedly began around 1 a.m., affecting Coupang's website and mobile app, food delivery platform Coupang Eats and streaming service Coupang Play. Access to the services appeared to have been restored roughly two hours later.
Users attempting to access the services encountered error messages, including one reading, "The network connection is not working. Please check your connection and try again."
An error message appears on a Coupang app during a widespread service outage early Friday. Screenshot from Coupang app
Others reported being unable to log in, search for products or retrieve account information. Some Coupang Eats customers also complained that they could not track food orders already placed.
The outage quickly prompted a wave of complaints across online communities, where users questioned whether the disruption could be linked to another cyberattack.
"Has it been hacked again?" one user wrote on a Naver online community, reporting access problems with both Coupang and Coupang Play.
Other users expressed similar concerns, with some speculating about whether the disruptions were caused by malicious software or technical failures.
The speculation reflected lingering anxiety over Coupang's previous data breach, which exposed customers' personal information and triggered widespread scrutiny of the company's security practices.
The latest disruption comes as Coupang continues to face legal and regulatory fallout from the incident. The U.S.-listed company recently filed lawsuits challenging South Korean government fines totaling approximately 620 billion won ($462 million) related to the breach.
Some users said they had contacted Coupang's customer service center during the outage and were told that an internal system error was responsible, with no estimated time for restoration.
The cause of the disruption was not immediately clear.
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