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Tuesday, July 29, 2025

Coinbase Faces DoJ Investigations After Buyer Information Leak


The US Division of Justice (DoJ) has launched an investigation into the current safety breach at crypto alternate Coinbase (Nasdaq: COIN). The breach concerned a leak of inner paperwork and knowledge linked to a “small subset” of buyer accounts, which perpetrators accessed by bribing abroad help brokers of the corporate.

First reported by Bloomberg, citing “an individual aware of the matter”, Coinbase’s Chief Authorized Officer, Paul Grewal, additionally confirmed the investigation is underway.

Paul Grewal, Chief Authorized Officer, Coinbase, Supply: LinkedIn

“We’ve notified and are working with the DOJ and different US and worldwide regulation enforcement businesses, and welcome regulation enforcement’s pursuit of legal costs in opposition to these dangerous actors,” Grewal stated.

The DoJ has not commented publicly on the investigation.

A Socially Engineered Assault

Coinbase disclosed the breach final week after the perpetrators contacted the corporate, demanding a $20 million ransom. The alternate refused to pay, as a substitute providing a $20 million reward for info resulting in the identification of these accountable.

The stolen knowledge consists of names, addresses, emails, account balances, masked financial institution particulars, and partial Social Safety numbers. Importantly, non-public keys and passwords weren’t accessed, and Coinbase confirmed that Prime accounts had been unaffected.

The incident got here to gentle on 11 Might when Coinbase acquired an electronic mail from an unidentified risk actor claiming entry to inner paperwork and the main points of sure buyer accounts. The alternate now expects the monetary affect of the cyberattack to vary between $180 million and $400 million.

Is Coinbase’s Safety Now in Query?

Regardless of the current breach, Coinbase stays one of many few main crypto exchanges not beforehand impacted by a full-scale cyberattack.

Earlier this yr, Bybit suffered a report $1.5 billion crypto theft, allegedly carried out by North Korea’s Lazarus Group, which exploited vulnerabilities in its chilly pockets infrastructure. In 2022, Binance, the world’s largest crypto alternate by quantity, additionally fell sufferer to a breach when attackers minted 2 million BNB tokens, value round $570 million on the time.

In the meantime, Coinbase was added to the S&P 500 index yesterday, changing Uncover Monetary Companies. The US-based alternate has additionally agreed to accumulate crypto choices platform Deribit for $2.9 billion and is reportedly bidding to accumulate stablecoin issuer Circle.

The US Division of Justice (DoJ) has launched an investigation into the current safety breach at crypto alternate Coinbase (Nasdaq: COIN). The breach concerned a leak of inner paperwork and knowledge linked to a “small subset” of buyer accounts, which perpetrators accessed by bribing abroad help brokers of the corporate.

First reported by Bloomberg, citing “an individual aware of the matter”, Coinbase’s Chief Authorized Officer, Paul Grewal, additionally confirmed the investigation is underway.

Paul Grewal, Chief Authorized Officer, Coinbase, Supply: LinkedIn

“We’ve notified and are working with the DOJ and different US and worldwide regulation enforcement businesses, and welcome regulation enforcement’s pursuit of legal costs in opposition to these dangerous actors,” Grewal stated.

The DoJ has not commented publicly on the investigation.

A Socially Engineered Assault

Coinbase disclosed the breach final week after the perpetrators contacted the corporate, demanding a $20 million ransom. The alternate refused to pay, as a substitute providing a $20 million reward for info resulting in the identification of these accountable.

The stolen knowledge consists of names, addresses, emails, account balances, masked financial institution particulars, and partial Social Safety numbers. Importantly, non-public keys and passwords weren’t accessed, and Coinbase confirmed that Prime accounts had been unaffected.

The incident got here to gentle on 11 Might when Coinbase acquired an electronic mail from an unidentified risk actor claiming entry to inner paperwork and the main points of sure buyer accounts. The alternate now expects the monetary affect of the cyberattack to vary between $180 million and $400 million.

Is Coinbase’s Safety Now in Query?

Regardless of the current breach, Coinbase stays one of many few main crypto exchanges not beforehand impacted by a full-scale cyberattack.

Earlier this yr, Bybit suffered a report $1.5 billion crypto theft, allegedly carried out by North Korea’s Lazarus Group, which exploited vulnerabilities in its chilly pockets infrastructure. In 2022, Binance, the world’s largest crypto alternate by quantity, additionally fell sufferer to a breach when attackers minted 2 million BNB tokens, value round $570 million on the time.

In the meantime, Coinbase was added to the S&P 500 index yesterday, changing Uncover Monetary Companies. The US-based alternate has additionally agreed to accumulate crypto choices platform Deribit for $2.9 billion and is reportedly bidding to accumulate stablecoin issuer Circle.



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