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Photo courtesy of Yonhap News |
[Alpha Biz= Kim Jisun] Seoul, September 17, 2025 — The fallout from the hacking incident at Lotte Card, which has more than 9.6 million members, is widening as the scale of the data breach is now believed to be far greater than initially reported. Some estimates suggest that the number of victims could reach into the hundreds of thousands or even millions.
According to financial regulators and industry sources, Lotte Card and the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) are in the final stages of verifying the scope of leaked information and the total number of affected customers. The investigation is nearing completion, and Lotte Card CEO Cho Jwa-jin is expected to issue a public apology and announce countermeasures as early as this week.
Initially, Lotte Card reported to regulators that around 1.7 gigabytes (GB) of data had been leaked. However, subsequent on-site inspections by the FSS revealed that the scale of the breach is far more serious than originally disclosed.
A regulatory official stated, “We expect the damage to be much larger than what was initially reported. If verification is completed smoothly, the results could be announced within this week.”
A Lotte Card spokesperson added, “The scale of the leak is larger than we had first identified. As soon as we confirm and identify the affected customer information, we are preparing to make an announcement.”
While the severity of leaked information may vary, experts warn that the total number of victims could ultimately reach into the millions.
Alphabiz Reporter Kim Jisun(stockmk2020@alphabiz.co.kr)
