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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

#361

Post by lkbm »

mavelikara wrote: post #307
vonneumannstan wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If they were Coinbase employees or contractors, that means the company basically sold its own data to hackers, who then turned around and demanded a ransom. This seems like a strange interpretation. If an employee at your company, against policy and likely illegally extracts proprietary data and gives it to hackers in exchange for money you can hardly say that "My company sold it's data".

> This seems like a strange interpretation. If an employee at your company, against policy and likely illegally extracts proprietary data and gives it to hackers in exchange for money you can hardly say that "My company sold it's data". When an employee ships a new feature, do you say "My company shipped a new feature?"

Did the employee ship the feature this against their employer's will? 'Cause if so, I'm not sure we would say the company shipped it.

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

#362

Post by toomim »

suzzer99 wrote: post #233
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…

Florida teens kidnap Las Vegas man, drive him to Arizona desert, steal $4M in cryptocurrency https://www.yahoo.com/news/florida-teens-kidnap-las-vegas-20...

And this crypto CEO in Toronto was kidnapped for a $1M ransom: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/kidnapping-toronto-bu...

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

#363

Post by mgillett54 »

drexlspivey wrote: post #296
growlNark wrote: post #161

I'm surprised they only demanded $20M. Surely that customer data is potentially worth, like, potentially orders-of-magnitude more. Correspondingly I'd assume either a) paying the ransom doesn't take it off the market or b) the info they stole isn't that interesting.

They only stole 80000 emails (1% of their monthly active users) not the whole userlist

> less than 1% of Coinbase monthly transacting users

Unclear if users whose data was stolen, but did NOT transact in the last month are included in this statistic. Feels like a very intentional phrasing on their part

https://www.coinbase.com/en-gb/blog/protecting-our-customers...

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

#364

Post by oefrha »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #127
volkk wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

correct, but what's the alternative? they're paid peanuts because it's not exactly the kind of job you ever pay out the wazoo for. the only thing that comes to mind if I'm Brian Armstrong is going all in on AI bots that can get to 90% of the way there (maybe 95%) and then have domestic based humans that are paid more with (presumably) a less probability of being bribed. but realistically, the only way to stop somethi…

> what's the alternative? Small set of privileged employees who work from the home office and are compensated to match. If an issue requires their attention, it takes time to resolve. But it's resolved securely. In essence, what Google does. Alternative is the banking model. Low-cost customer service massively empowered and just eat the costs of breaches as they come.

What Google does is “don’t resolve shit”. When I was a Google Fi customer paying $60-80/mo, so more than the vast majority of Google users, their customer support was completely useless (but at least polite, I’ll give them that). They did take their sweet time, kept promising to call me back after each fruitless call I initiated but didn’t, so you’re right about “it takes time to resolve” I guess.

My multiple banks’ customer service is meh but they do resolve problems and as far as I can tell, haven’t leaked any of my stuff yet in decades. That you think “what Google does” is better than “the banking model” is amusing.

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

#365

Post by gxs »

panarky wrote: post #194
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…

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…

And yet, Coinbase goes Scott free

Someone, someone at that company should be going to prison for negligence

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

#366

Post by intrasight »

conductr wrote: post #201
VectorLock wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

It’s my biggest gripe. They can pretty accurately flag a number as Spam or Telemarketing but in the “Silence Unknown Callers” setting I can only silence every single unknown caller. I can’t silence every single number that’s not in my contacts. When the plumber calls to confirm he’s in route, my phone needs to ring. Stuff like that.

I've failed to semantically parse your statements

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

#367

Post by UltraSane »

conductr wrote: post #201
VectorLock wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

It’s my biggest gripe. They can pretty accurately flag a number as Spam or Telemarketing but in the “Silence Unknown Callers” setting I can only silence every single unknown caller. I can’t silence every single number that’s not in my contacts. When the plumber calls to confirm he’s in route, my phone needs to ring. Stuff like that.

Why would a number in your contacts be considered "unknown"

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

#368

Post by nradov »

krunck wrote: post #207
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…

But hey, at least by being forced to give crypto exchanges all our personal details we're all super protected from the four horsemen: money laundering, drugs, terrorism and pornography.

No one is forced to use a "crypto exchange" in the first place.

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

#369

Post by nradov »

aeternum wrote: post #301
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…

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.

There is no valid reason why Coinbase or any other financial services company should ever be excepted from AML/KYC laws. If anything the laws ought to be even tighter to slow down financial flows to criminals and sanctioned entities.

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

#370

Post by JumpCrisscross »

oefrha wrote: post #364
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> what's the alternative? Small set of privileged employees who work from the home office and are compensated to match. If an issue requires their attention, it takes time to resolve. But it's resolved securely. In essence, what Google does. Alternative is the banking model. Low-cost customer service massively empowered and just eat the costs of breaches as they come.

What Google does is “don’t resolve shit”. When I was a Google Fi customer paying $60-80/mo, so more than the vast majority of Google users, their customer support was completely useless (but at least polite, I’ll give them that). They did take their sweet time, kept promising to call me back after each fruitless call I initiated but didn’t, so you’re right about “it takes time to resolve” I guess. My multiple banks’…

Oh totally. I’m just defining the poles of the spectrums. Someone has to eat the cost, whether it be in friction and inconvenience or reimbursing fraud.
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