Coinbase confirmed that “at least 6,000 Coinbase customers had funds removed from their accounts” following a phishing campaign and promised to reimburse them.
News of the phishing campaign taking place was reported all the way back in August, but the scope became clear later, following a letter from the company that was sent to the customers who were affected.
Coinbase revealed that the hackers had access to the email accounts of the victims, and used the hacked accounts to steal the crypto. This was possible after the attackers hacked the SMS part of the two-factor authentication used for extra safety.
The letter mentions that:
“However, in this incident, for customers who use SMS texts for two-factor authentication, the third party took advantage of a flaw in Coinbase’s SMS Account Recovery process in order to receive an SMS two-factor authentication token and gain access to your account.”
Coinbase confirmed it would reimburse the people who had their funds stolen. The exact amount stolen wasn’t confirmed.
A spokesperson for Coinbase declared:
“Because of the size, scope, and sophistication of the campaign we have been working with a range of partners, law enforcement agencies, and other stakeholders to understand the attack and develop mitigation techniques. We didn’t feel comfortable disclosing the attack publicly until the correct steps were taken to ensure that it couldn’t be repeated successfully, and would not compromise the integrity of law enforcement investigations.”