Coinbase says hackers bribed staff to steal customer data, demanding $20M ransom • Hacker News Board

Re: Coinbase says hackers bribed staff to steal customer data, demanding $20M ransom

#101

Post by dttze » Thu, May 15, 2025, 5:20 PM UTC

ivewonyoung wrote: post #98

thepasswordis wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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You mean like in the USA? > ...bribed AT&T employees at a call center in Bothell, Washington, to "use their network credentials and exceed their authorized access to AT&T's computers to submit large numbers of fraudulent and unauthorized unlock requests on behalf of the conspiracy and to install malware and unauthorized hardware on AT&T's systems," according to the indictment. https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/att-empl…

Not sure how bribing employees to unlock phones early is comparable to defrauding elderly people.

Re: Coinbase says hackers bribed staff to steal customer data, demanding $20M ransom

#102

Post by kragen » Thu, May 15, 2025, 5:20 PM UTC

CryptoBanker wrote: post #99

kragen wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, it sounds like they do implement greater security measures than most organizations.

Doesn't matter when Coinbase still got exploited

In a broad sense I agree, but it does matter to orionsbelt's comment.

Re: Coinbase says hackers bribed staff to steal customer data, demanding $20M ransom

#103

Post by [deleted] » Thu, May 15, 2025, 5:25 PM UTC

forix wrote: post #10

Video response from Coinbase's CEO: https://x.com/brian_armstrong/status/1922967787309256807

[deleted]

Re: Coinbase says hackers bribed staff to steal customer data, demanding $20M ransom

#104

Post by pentagrama » Thu, May 15, 2025, 5:26 PM UTC

Maybe it’s a naive question, but in many breach reports I see things like 'No passwords, private keys, or funds were exposed.' How come companies can usually protect that kind of data, but not emails, names, and other personal info?

Re: Coinbase says hackers bribed staff to steal customer data, demanding $20M ransom

#105

Post by dboreham » Thu, May 15, 2025, 5:27 PM UTC

pentagrama wrote: post #104

Maybe it’s a naive question, but in many breach reports I see things like 'No passwords, private keys, or funds were exposed.' How come companies can usually protect that kind of data, but not emails, names, and other personal info?

It was some BI/analyst database that leaked?

Re: Coinbase says hackers bribed staff to steal customer data, demanding $20M ransom

#106

Post by voidspark » Thu, May 15, 2025, 5:27 PM UTC

dowager_dan99 wrote: post #85

voidspark wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can customer support operate without knowing anything about the customer?

CS can validate without knowing the details, the same way you don't enter a password and then check to see if that matches the password in the system. The fact that they keep blaming overseas customer support is pure blame shifting - you still hired someone and gave them access to all this data, Coinbase!

We don’t know if they had access to everything. They got data for “less than 1% of monthly transacting customers”.

Re: Coinbase says hackers bribed staff to steal customer data, demanding $20M ransom

#107

Post by selectout » Thu, May 15, 2025, 5:28 PM UTC

pentagrama wrote: post #104

Maybe it’s a naive question, but in many breach reports I see things like 'No passwords, private keys, or funds were exposed.' How come companies can usually protect that kind of data, but not emails, names, and other personal info?

Companies want the ability to use things like emails, names, and other data for user experiences (go to settings, see name and change it), advertising (target this address book for X ad), etc. So these are typically plaintext (oversimplified) and accessible by different systems while passwords or private keys have one use case only and can have a higher bar of protection.

Re: Coinbase says hackers bribed staff to steal customer data, demanding $20M ransom

#108

Post by dboreham » Thu, May 15, 2025, 5:28 PM UTC

kragen wrote: post #24

neilv wrote: post #17

The article keeps saying overseas employees or contractors, but isn't more specific on who Coinbase entrusted with this sensitive customer PII. The bottom line is Coinbase didn't adequately secure sensitive customer information, and it was leaked. Not, "Gosh, 'overseas' people, what can ya do?"

It's probably hard to keep call-center workers bribe-proof.

Yes but you can not give them a SQL prompt. Rate limiting account queries per CSR is a common mitigation measure.

Re: Coinbase says hackers bribed staff to steal customer data, demanding $20M ransom

#109

Post by LtWorf » Thu, May 15, 2025, 5:32 PM UTC

neilv wrote: post #17

The article keeps saying overseas employees or contractors, but isn't more specific on who Coinbase entrusted with this sensitive customer PII. The bottom line is Coinbase didn't adequately secure sensitive customer information, and it was leaked. Not, "Gosh, 'overseas' people, what can ya do?"

They are probably used as scapegoats and didn't even leak the stuff. Crypto companies tend to do that.

Re: Coinbase says hackers bribed staff to steal customer data, demanding $20M ransom

#110

Post by udev4096 » Thu, May 15, 2025, 5:32 PM UTC

neilv wrote: post #17

The article keeps saying overseas employees or contractors, but isn't more specific on who Coinbase entrusted with this sensitive customer PII. The bottom line is Coinbase didn't adequately secure sensitive customer information, and it was leaked. Not, "Gosh, 'overseas' people, what can ya do?"

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