The Coinbase Hacking Tale

Earlier this week, ZATAZ, the rather reputable french internet magazine focusing on information security reported that Coinbase had been hacked.

The site claimed that the hacker was providing various usernames and passwords for Coinbase and that they had confirmed the compromised accounts by way of logging in using various user credentials and seeing that they were in fact compromised.

The magazine contacted Coinbase regarding the hack and the company launched an internal investigation to determine the source of the hacking if one existed and began the work of disabling the accounts from the list that was provided by the hacker.

The hacker was charging .7 BTC  for access to the list and of course the standard fears began on reddit regarding the hacking.

Coin Fire reached out to Coinbase for further information as per our policy and anxiously awaited a response. Had Coinbase actually been hacked or was something else such as a simple phishing attempt at play here.

Coinbase contacted us later that afternoon with the following statement:

Wanted to follow up with some quick background in response to your question – this isn’t a result of any direct attack on the Coinbase systems, but rather the result of various phishing or malware attacks. Coinbase has taken all necessary steps to protect users from these types of attacks and are closely monitoring for further activity.

To help ensure user security, Coinbase recommends they use a modern browser like Chrome, keep software and operating systems up to date, and take the proper precautions when installing software on the internet.

It now appears that this like many other claims of a Coinbase hacking was simply the results of a phishing attack against the users on the list. None of the accounts contained on the list were using two factor authentication.

As of Sunday, July 27th the magazine has not yet updated the story to reflect that this was a phishing attack and that Coinbase is still verified as being safe by the company.

This story should serve as a reminder to always use two-factor authentication with your account and if you see something regarding the hacking of something to treat it with a certain level of doubt until an official response comes out.

At the time of this news the current Winkdex price was $589.12 (-0.74%).