The breach, which occurred between Feb. 3 and 4 during a routine update to Naver's "Knowledge iN" Q&A service, caused links to users' past anonymous activity to surface in public search results, triggering widespread privacy concerns across South Korea.
Personal queries and responses that prominent figures had posted under the assumption of anonymity were laid bare to the public, fueling a backlash over what critics called a serious violation of user privacy on the country's dominant search engine.
"We sincerely apologize for the distress caused to our users," Choi said in a public notice posted on Friday, adding that the company had fully rolled back the update by 10 p.m. on Feb. 4 and that the same error would not recur.
Naver said it had preemptively reported the incident to the Personal Information Protection Commission, South Korea's data privacy watchdog, and pledged to cooperate fully with any ensuing investigation. The company has also sent individual apology emails to all affected users.
The tech giant vowed to conduct a sweeping review of its service protocols to prevent a repeat of the breach, with Choi emphasizing the company would take "a responsible stance" in containing further fallout for those affected.
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