Photo courtesy of Yonhap News

 

[Alpha Biz= Kim Jisun] It was belatedly revealed that the settlement accounts of South Korean sellers operating on AliExpress, a Chinese e-commerce platform, were hacked, resulting in delayed payments totaling KRW 8.6 billion. AliExpress said it has fully compensated the affected sellers, including additional interest, ensuring that all losses were covered.

According to an “AliExpress Security Incident Report” obtained on the 19th by Rep. Lee Hae-min of the Rebuilding Korea Party, AliExpress received a report on October 16 last year from a South Korean seller who had not received settlement payments on the scheduled payout date, which falls on the 15th of each month. An internal investigation found that passwords for 107 seller accounts on the “AliExpress Korea Seller Center” had been reset, and bank account information for 83 of those accounts had been altered by hackers. As a result, unpaid settlement funds amounted to USD 6 million, or approximately KRW 8.6 billion.

AliExpress paid all delayed settlement amounts to the sellers, adding late-payment interest. An AliExpress official said, “Immediately upon confirming the hacking incident, we promptly reported and officially notified the relevant authorities, including the Korea Internet & Security Agency (KISA), and AliExpress bore the full financial loss.” The official added, “All settlement payments were fully completed by October 20 last year, and on October 27, we also provided additional compensation equal to twice the applicable interest rate to cover losses resulting from the payment delay.”

AliExpress characterized the incident as an “external intrusion attempt targeting part of the settlement process.”

 

 

 

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