China’s Pinduoduo Reports Theft Worth Millions of Yuan – Caixin Global
What happened: Hackers have exploited a loophole in social e-commerce giant Pinduoduo’s platform allowing them to steal around RMB 10 million ($1.5 million) in online discount vouchers. The company said it has since fixed the bug reported the incident to the police. Users found that they were able to apply a free RMB 100 voucher to any product on the company’s platform. Large amounts of coupons were redeemed within the space of a few hours.
Why it’s important: The incident marks the second time in the past three months a technical problem has been found on the e-commerce giant’s platform. In November, the company had its app temporarily removed from Apple’s China App Store as a result of a bug. The company didn’t provide any further details. Following the recent incident, Pinduoduo denied any systematic security loopholes, saying that the collective exploited a loophole in its operating rules, though it didn’t elaborate.