The industry receives a major wake-up call
Just a few days before its historic inclusion in the S&P 500 index, Coinbase revealed yesterday through a presentation that a cyberattack earlier this month resulted in the theft of customer account data.
Bloomberg, citing a source, reports that hackers have had access to the data since the beginning of the year.
Coinbase insists that if any customer was tricked into mistakenly sending funds, they will receive a refund. The incident could cost the exchange up to 400 million dollars, according to the platform.
"In the long list of cryptocurrency companies that have been hacked, there are many examples of financial losses that are much more painful than what Coinbase seems to be suffering as a result of the attack," Bloomberg stated. "However, this case stands out for its significance. This time, the victim was possibly the most influential American company in the sector."
In an openly aggressive scheme, cybercriminals bribed customer representatives to steal their confidential data (names, birth dates, addresses, nationalities, government-issued identification numbers, banking information like balances, and even details about when accounts were created); then the culprits demanded a ransom of 20 million dollars to delete them, Bloomberg said.
"It's a significant leak," said Mike Dudas, managing partner of 6MV, a Web3 company, who told Bloomberg that he had been targeted by Coinbase hackers. "The amount of personal information shared is astounding," he added.