Data Breach at Coinbase Exposes Information of Nearly 70,000 Customers

A data breach affecting nearly 70,000 Coinbase users led to firings, heightened security, and a $20 million bounty.

70,000 people affected by Coinbase breach

Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase confirmed that nearly 70,000 customers were affected by a recent data breach attributed to the misconduct of a small group of external contractors.

The company disclosed the incident in a formal notification to the Maine Attorney General’s office this week.

The breach, identified earlier this month, impacted 69,461 individuals, according to the filing. Coinbase currently serves over 100 million verified users worldwide. The company previously indicated that the breach impacted “less than 1%” of its monthly active users.

External contractors linked to the breach

According to the notification, the breach was linked to a small team of external contractors working at Coinbase’s overseas customer support centers. These individuals reportedly accessed sensitive customer data without authorization, including:

• Partial Social Security Numbers (SSNs)
• Bank account numbers
• Home addresses
• Email addresses
• Phone numbers
• Dates of birth
• Government-issued ID numbers (driver’s licenses, national identity cards, passports)
• Transaction histories
• Account details

Coinbase emphasized that no account credentials, passwords, private keys or seed phrases were compromised in the security incident. Furthermore, it said that Coinbase Prime, the company’s institutional trading platform was unaffected.

Company response and mitigation

After discovering the breach, Coinbase determined that the perpetrators may have shared the stolen data with an unnamed third party, which demanded a $20 million ransom in exchange for not leaking or exploiting the data.

The company declined to pay and instead established a $20 million reward fund to help identify and apprehend those responsible.

In response to the incident, Coinbase terminated the contracts of the involved individuals and is now offering a year of complimentary identity theft protection and credit monitoring to all affected customers.

The importance of being prepared for data breaches

Unfortunately, data breaches are unannounced and indiscriminate, beyond the customer’s control. Preparation, though, can help blunt the impact when they do occur.

Specialized software like Bitdefender Digital Identity Protection can help you stay on guard for data breaches by continuously monitoring traces of your online data.

It constantly monitors both the public and the Dark Web, alerts you instantly if your data has been compromised in a breach, and helps you patch weak spots in your digital footprint quickly.