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

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

#151
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What coinbase needs are IRL offices where you can go and do things like account recovery, and where people trying to steal money can be caught and prosecuted (and makes a huge barrier for the overseas thieves who are usually doing this) That's just a bank.

Beyond the regulatory-dodge and crypto marketing explain to me how Coinbase is NOT a bank

Cryptocurrency firms exist in a quantum superposition of bank and not-a-bank until you interact with them, at which point they collapse into whichever state costs them less money.

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

#152
post #124

So this is probably why the phishing calls have increased from ~1 per month to ~3 per week.. good to know... Wish coinbase would let me DO something about it... Maybe fresh accounts for everyone? Maybe KYC data not directly linked to accounts? There should be SOMETHING they can do because the sheer volume of people constantly harassing CB customers is nuts.

Forget relying on brokerages like COIN. If you care about the security of your digital assets, use a cold wallet or non-custodial account.

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

#153

There should be an ISO standard with respect to how much power and information that front line customer support agents have. The more information you need, like changing passwords or accessing personal information, should get forwarded to higher level customer support agents with better training and more monitoring. This way you can design customer support experience with as little exposure to security issues as poss…

Compartmentalization is a very expensive customer support model.

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

#154

Blog post is here: https://www.coinbase.com/blog/protecting-our-customers-stand... > We will reimburse customers who were tricked into sending funds to the attacker due to social engineering attacks. If your data was accessed, you have already received an email from no-reply@info.coinbase.com; all notifications went out at 7:20 a.m. ET on 5/15 to affected customers.

> No passwords, private keys, or funds were exposed and Coinbase Prime accounts are untouched.

I'm curious why no Coinbase Prime accounts were part of the leak (assuming that's what they mean). Is there some sort of additional layer of data protection behind the Coinbase Prime paywall? Or perhaps those accounts were intentionally avoided as they would presumably belong to more savvy users.

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

#155
post #153

There should be an ISO standard with respect to how much power and information that front line customer support agents have. The more information you need, like changing passwords or accessing personal information, should get forwarded to higher level customer support agents with better training and more monitoring. This way you can design customer support experience with as little exposure to security issues as poss…

Compartmentalization is a very expensive customer support model.

So are $20M ransoms and the reputational damage from data breaches.

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

#156

Blog post is here: https://www.coinbase.com/blog/protecting-our-customers-stand... > We will reimburse customers who were tricked into sending funds to the attacker due to social engineering attacks. If your data was accessed, you have already received an email from no-reply@info.coinbase.com; all notifications went out at 7:20 a.m. ET on 5/15 to affected customers.

> No passwords, private keys, or funds were exposed and Coinbase Prime accounts are untouched. I'm curious why no Coinbase Prime accounts were part of the leak (assuming that's what they mean). Is there some sort of additional layer of data protection behind the Coinbase Prime paywall? Or perhaps those accounts were intentionally avoided as they would presumably belong to more savvy users.

Coinbase Prime is its own exchange with its own support (actual humans in the USA that are available to chat to). It's for "institutional investors" so unavailable to most customers without the proper credentials/paperwork. They don't share the same outsourced "support" as the regular exchange, which appears to be the attack vector here.

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

#157

From the Coinbase website: https://www.coinbase.com/en-de/blog/protecting-our-customers... What they got - Name, address, phone, and email - Masked Social Security (last 4 digits only) - Masked bank‑account numbers and some bank account identifiers - Government‑ID images (e.g., driver’s license, passport) - Account data (balance snapshots and transaction history) Wow. Why does customer support staff have access to im…

Who else would verify the user passports if not the customer support staff? Who verifies (and photocopies! in Asia and Europe) your passport at a hotel or car rental office?

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

#158
post #148
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What coinbase needs are IRL offices where you can go and do things like account recovery, and where people trying to steal money can be caught and prosecuted (and makes a huge barrier for the overseas thieves who are usually doing this) That's just a bank.

Watching crypto enthusiasts run into every problem that society already tackled with in the past when developing currency and its controls, and then coming up with solutions that look exactly the same as what dirty fiat currency uses, has been a source of much entertainment the past few years

This is an exchange problem, not a crypto problem. You don’t need an exchange to hold crypto.

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

#159

I tried to reach out to coinbase customer support to see if I was impacted. Once I wasted my time with the AI bot and got a human they were unaware of the breach. I was the first person to inform them about it.

Maybe the actual first person got unlucky with a lazy customer support agent.

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

#160
post #152
post #124

So this is probably why the phishing calls have increased from ~1 per month to ~3 per week.. good to know... Wish coinbase would let me DO something about it... Maybe fresh accounts for everyone? Maybe KYC data not directly linked to accounts? There should be SOMETHING they can do because the sheer volume of people constantly harassing CB customers is nuts.

Forget relying on brokerages like COIN. If you care about the security of your digital assets, use a cold wallet or non-custodial account.

The comment you're replying to was complaining about scam calls, not about wallet security.

Using a hardware/"cold-ish" wallet does not protect you from scam calls: https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/physical-addr...

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