Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

cnbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

331–340 of 550 posts

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

#331

Post by thepasswordis »

lxgr wrote: post #264
thepasswordis wrote: post #56

The problem is that it seems like the data that leaked is also the data that would be used to do account recovery. And what that means is that 1) If you lose access to your account (through either your own fault, or coinbases fault) that the process of recovering it may not be so straightforward anymore. 2) Hackers can try to “recover” accounts now using this leaked info. This is a huge problem. What coinbase needs a…

> 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 People getting locked out of their account (which can happen due to no fault of the user, e.g. by an overly nervous risk system) will be really happy to have to potentially travel to a different city to regain account access...

I would be very happy to do this.

Fine, make it optional. I actually would love a version of cold storage that is: never release this money unless I personally travel to an office if NYC and authorize it.

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

#332

Post by mullingitover »

conductr wrote: post #203
dx4100 wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have my phone set to silence Unknown callers. What did you have setup on the Pixel before to block them?

That’s too heavy handed for me. I get valid calls that I need to answer that aren’t in my contacts. The calls they flag as potential spam and telemarketers has been 100% accurate in my experience so i wish I could just silence those

I just see if they leave a message. If they don’t, they’re sorted. If they do I can always call them back.

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

#333

Post by babyshake »

A few weeks ago I got this email:

Update to the Coinbase User Agreement

We are emailing you about an important upcoming update to the Coinbase User Agreement. This update will revise our Arbitration Agreement with you. We made these updates to streamline the process for resolving disputes.

You can read the entire agreement here. The revised terms are in sections 9.9, 9.10 and Appendix 6.

These terms apply only to disputes that you or we initiate after May 15, 2025. The current terms will continue to apply until May 15.

---

What date did this news come out? I see it just happens to be the same date as mentioned in this email, May 15. Coinbase sneakily is trying to prevent their customers from exercising their legal rights. If you work for Coinbase, you ought to be ashamed and quit. If you use Coinbase, remove all your assets immediately.

I'm open to hearing reasons why this is just a coincidence or I'm misinterpreting the situation. Please, go ahead.

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

#334

Post by [deleted] »

babyshake wrote: post #333

A few weeks ago I got this email: Update to the Coinbase User Agreement We are emailing you about an important upcoming update to the Coinbase User Agreement. This update will revise our Arbitration Agreement with you. We made these updates to streamline the process for resolving disputes. You can read the entire agreement here. The revised terms are in sections 9.9, 9.10 and Appendix 6. These terms apply only to dis…

[deleted]

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

#335

Post by parliament32 »

VectorLock wrote: post #190
modeless wrote: post #179

I have been receiving regular spear phishing calls from these guys, or someone who bought the leaked data, with classic tactics like claiming that I need to confirm a potentially fraudulent transaction. They speak perfect English with an American accent, sound very friendly, and have knowledge of your account balance. Thankfully on the first call I realized it was a scam right away, and Google's call screening featur…

I just switched to iPhone from a pixel device and I’m shook by all the spam calls. How do iPhone users deal with this?

Yeah you went the wrong way there brother.

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

#336

Post by ellisd »

VectorLock wrote: post #190
modeless wrote: post #179

I have been receiving regular spear phishing calls from these guys, or someone who bought the leaked data, with classic tactics like claiming that I need to confirm a potentially fraudulent transaction. They speak perfect English with an American accent, sound very friendly, and have knowledge of your account balance. Thankfully on the first call I realized it was a scam right away, and Google's call screening featur…

I just switched to iPhone from a pixel device and I’m shook by all the spam calls. How do iPhone users deal with this?

Unfortunately blocking all unknown calls is the only way to sanity. Otherwise we're talking 6-9 calls coming in ALL DAY, EVERY DAY.

The calls are coming from new numbers, across multiple area codes. A few months ago I would have advised using Begone (https://apps.apple.com/us/app/begone-spam-call-blocker/id159...) to block but that only worked since these calls were isolated to blocks of area codes that were pretty safe to block like 888-XXX-XXXX, but now ZERO of these calls are using a fixed area code that would be relative safe to block.

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

#337

Post by iambateman »

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #253
panarky wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you had any significant assets on Coinbase at any time prior to this breach, spear phishing is the least of your worries. Coinbase not only leaked your full name and address, they also gave up your balances, your transaction history, and images of your government identification. People with "significant" crypto balances are being assaulted on the street and in their own homes, and family members are being kidnappe…

> will never be forced to reimburse all the damage they've done because the true cost would bankrupt the company This story keeps repeating. Maybe we should try it and see if it works as a deterrent.

So you’re saying that one year of complementary credit monitoring by Experian isn’t enough??? /s

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

#338

Post by aeternum »

panarky wrote: post #311
aeternum wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you see this as the fault of Coinbase? Do other companies somehow have employees that are immune to bribes and blackmail? This is due to US Government KYC laws that forced Coinbase to associate government identification with all accounts. No crypto company required ID until they were forced to.

The US Government didn't provide high-volume, bulk access to this extremely sensitive information to contractors in foreign countries with no controls over their ability to mass-exfiltrate the data. Coinbase is the entity that set up this dangerous system. Coinbase did it because it was cheap for them, not because they were being trustworthy custodians of information that put their customers at risk. Sure, yes, obvio…

Fair enough, and it does sound like they had limits given that not all customer data was exfiltrated but those limits were probably far too high at tens of thousands affected.

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

#339

Post by AustinDev »

modeless wrote: post #176
sgarman wrote: post #150

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.

They emailed impacted accounts. Source: I was impacted

What was the title of the email? I got a generic looking email at 7AM EST this morning describing the breach.

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

#340

Post by rasz »

sgarman wrote: post #150

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.

You were read "Wow we didnt know about it, you are the first person talking about it to me" script line.
Post reply on HN