Coinbase's CEO Brian Armstrong revealed that the company received a ransom email demanding $20 million in Bitcoin after hackers obtained sensitive customer information. He confirmed they will not pay the ransom and went on to explain how a compromised customer service agent outside the U.S. was responsible for the data leak. The stolen data includes personal identifiers like names, addresses, and government-ID images, which could lead to social engineering attacks against customers. Coinbase plans to reimburse affected customers and anticipates substantial remediation costs related to the incident, impacting its stock price.
I'm going to respond publicly. We are not going to pay ransom.
Hackers received access to names, addresses, phone numbers, and emails; masked Social Security numbers, bank-account numbers, and government-ID images.
The stolen data allows them to conduct social engineering attacks where they can call our customers impersonating Coinbase customer support.
Coinbase estimated it could end up spending anywhere between $180 million and $400 million relating to remediation costs and voluntary customer reimbursements.
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