Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase announced that they are offering a bounty reward worth $20 million for details that would lead to identifying criminals that attempted to blackmail the exchange.
The popular exchange took to its blog to disclose that they had faced an extortion attempt, and have decided to launch an investigation to find the bad actors, instead of paying the blackmailers. In the blog post, the firm revealed that a criminal gang accessed details of fewer than 1% of Coinbase users by bribing overseas customer service agents.
The stolen data included basic user information such as names, masked bank account numbers, identity documents, account details, and limited corporate data. With this limited access, the blackmailers intended to contact affected Coinbase users and deceive them into transferring their crypto assets to fraudulent addresses.
However, the blog post clarified that the attackers did not obtain more sensitive information, such as login credentials or private keys.
Coinbase revealed that the criminal group demanded a $20 million ransom in exchange for withholding the release of the compromised client information. The company firmly stated that it will not comply with the ransom demand or support criminal activity in any way.
Instead, Coinbase has launched a full investigation and is offering a $20 million bounty to anyone who can provide credible information leading to the identification and arrest of those responsible.
This blackmail attempt comes after Tron DAO’s X page was compromised by a hacker, who posted a contract address for users to send cryptocurrency to, and sent messages to multiple X accounts requesting for crypto.
Coinbase’s Future Plans
The crypto exchange revealed that it has identified the vulnerabilities in its system and has strengthened its controls to prevent similar incidents from happening in the future. Coinbase also shared plans to establish a customer support hub in the United States, alongside further enhancements to its security measures. The company has also said that it’s committed to compensating clients affected by this breach.
For accounts flagged as high-risk, Coinbase now requires additional identity verification steps for large withdrawals and has implemented mandatory scam-awareness notifications. With ongoing monitoring of suspicious activity, some transactions may experience delays as a precautionary measure to protect users.
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