In yet another alarming cyber incident, Coinbase has joined the growing list of high-profile companies hit by data breaches, reinforcing the unsettling belief that being hacked is now the “new normal.”
Founded in 2012 by Brian Armstrong and Fred Ehrsam, Coinbase is a publicly traded cryptocurrency exchange listed on NASDAQ under the ticker COIN and is widely used for trading cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum.
The company confirmed that a breach has compromised sensitive data of less than 1% of its users. Exposed information includes names, addresses, emails, government-issued IDs, and partial Social Security numbers. The attack’s goal was to impersonate Coinbase and defraud users of their cryptocurrency.
The breach occurred after scammers successfully bribed customer support agents outside the U.S. to leak client information. CEO Armstrong acknowledged the presence of “a few bad apples” who aided the attackers.
The hackers reportedly demanded $20 million in exchange for covering up the breach, which Armstrong refused. Estimated losses range between $180 million and $400 million, including remediation and customer reimbursements.
Coinbase has apologized to affected users and reaffirmed its commitment to transparency and strengthening its cybersecurity infrastructure to prevent such incidents in the future.
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