Courts fined 178000 dollars in Singapore following major ransomware breach

Electronics and furniture retailer Courts was fined 178,000 dollars in Singapore following a ransomware attack that compromised the personal records of nearly one million people, The Straits Times reported. The breach affected 946,972 individuals, including 941,513 customers alongside 5,459 current, former, and prospective employees. [1]

The Singapore Personal Data Protection Commission published its decision on October 26 regarding the August 11 ruling, according to The Straits Times. Investigators found that an attacker likely breached the network around September 21, 2022, by targeting backup servers designed to maintain operations during main system failures. [1]

Extensive personal details were exposed during the security incident, The Straits Times reported. The compromised information included sensitive employee bank account details. This financial penalty marks the third time since January 2019 that Courts has breached its data protection obligations under local regulations. [1]

Data protection enforcement against major corporate breaches has intensified globally. As FTMQ Security reported earlier, South Korean e-commerce company Coupang filed lawsuits to contest a 620 billion won fine following a November 2025 data breach that exposed the information of over 33 million customers. [4]