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A crypto boss has issued a brutal public response to hackers after they demanded a $20 million ransom.
The cryptocurrency firm Coinbase shared that it had suffered a breach to its systems which included customer data and government-issued identity documents.
And to make things even worse, the hacker responsible for the breach contacted Coinbase to admit their crime and demand cash in return for not releasing the data.
In a statement the crypto giant said that the person had ‘obtained this information by paying multiple contractors or employees working in support roles outside the United States to collect information from internal Coinbase systems to which they had access in order to perform their job responsibilities’.
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The support staff that were involved in this are no longer working for the company.
In a legally required filing, Coinbase revealed that the hacker demanded a whopping $20 million in ransom money but the firm has said that it will not be paying it.
Instead, Coinbase has ‘warned customers whose information was potentially accessed in order to prevent misuse of any compromised information’.
Taking to X, formerly Twitter, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong, said: “I wanna make you aware of a disturbing email that we received recently at Coinbase.
“It was a ransom note demanding $20 million in Bitcoin in exchange for these attacker not releasing some information they claim to have obtained on our customers.”
Armstrong went on to say that he intends to respond publicly to these attackers, adding: “No, we are not going to pay your ransom.”
A further statement made by Coinbase on social media read: “Cyber criminals bribed and recruited rogue overseas support agents to pull personal data on <1% of Coinbase MTUs. No passwords, private keys, or funds were exposed. Prime accounts are untouched. We will reimburse impacted customers.”
As a next step, the company share that it plans to open up a new US based support hub and also intends to strengthen its security measures in order to prevent a similar incident from occurring.
On X, Armstrong added: “Any customers that were socially engineered as a result of this incident, we’re gonna reimburse them… any customers who have been impacted by this or have been notified at this point.
“Number two, we’re hardening our systems around customer support to make something like this much more difficult in the future.
“And third, we’re actually relocating some of our customer support operations as a result of this.”
